Details With the Devil
by Infrared-Ultraviolet
Summary: Princess Anna has a deadly secret-one that could spell destruction for her entire kingdom if unleashed. While on the run, she meets a strange boy in the woods with a secret even more terrifying. Through their isolation they form an unlikely bond, but how long can they really hope to survive against an entire kingdom that wants them dead? Hiccanna, T for generally dark content.
1. Prologue

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN THESE CHARACTERS OR THIS SETTING, ONLY THE STORYLINE. FROZEN BELONGS TO DISNEY AND HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON BELONGS TO DREAMWORKS.**

* * *

**HHHHAHAHA HEY THERE FRIENDS, REMEMBER ME?**

**Whooooo boy, it's been a while!**

**"What is this?" You scream, pawing your way to the front of the skeptical crowd. "Have you returned with an EXTENDED Hiccanna story for us? Are you back in the world of fanfiction at last with much new content?"**

**Well…yes and no.**

**I've been working on this story since January of 2017. That's right, almost 3 years. And…it's not actually finished yet. I'm currently on Chapter 20 out of a total of 30ish chapters, so only about 2/3 of the way through.**

**So in other words, I have become a traitor to my oldest and dearest policy: DON'T SUBMIT THE DAMN STORY UNTIL YOU'RE DONE WRITING IT.**

**AND YET.**

**HERE WE ARE.**

**So what was it that made me betray such a virtue so near and dear to my heart?**

**A couple reasons. A) I said I would probably submit it in 2019 and honestly I'm kinda tired of putting off the release date, especially since I haven't been active at all on here, and B) I wanted to release it before Frozen 2 came out and I'm positive that Frozen 2 will proceed to prove all my theories about the origin of Elsa's powers wrong XD That, and I want it here on this site in steadfast proof that I started writing this story before Frozen 2 was released, so I won't be expected to account for any of the events in Frozen 2 XD**

**Admittedly since I'm submitting the story a bit earlier than I expected, I can't give quite the…glamorous intro author's note I was imagining, but I'll do my best. Let me just say that with the first 20 chapters I've written and the last 10 I have planned, y'all are in for one hell of a ride.**

**A fair word of warning: This story is a pretty far cry from the lighthearted, fluffy Hiccanna stories I've written thus far. It's easily one of the darkest stories I've ever written…not even in fanfiction, but probably in general. I honestly surprised myself by the territory I ended up going into with this. It gets a little disturbing, to say the least. Writing it was a pretty wild ride too, considering I was going through some pretty intense shit throughout the writing process and a lot of that ended up being reflected in the story—the worst heartbreak of my life, some serious mental health issues, having to deal with loved ones having serious mental health issues, general depression from school, and transitioning to adulthood in general, just to name a few. If angst is not your thing, I would advise passing on this story, since it's basically 30 straight chapters of it XD I mean…not entirely, since it's freaking Hiccup and Anna and our favorite dorks can honestly make light of even the worst situations, but they're still about to go through quite a bit of shit. Apologies to both of them in advance.**

**And honestly? Goddamn, I love this thing. It's gritty and dark and depressing and kind of horrifying at times, but I'd be damned if I didn't pour my heart and soul into it. It was…an oddly cathartic way of processing a lot of my own shit while telling kind of a weird, angsty story about my OTP that's been floating around in my head for a while.**

**SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, PLEASE ENJOY DETAILS WITH THE DEVIL!**

* * *

The door to the castle drawing room had never seemed like such an insurmountable barrier.

The enormous oaken slab was a work of art, something likely commissioned by a local carver when the castle was first being built. A delicate wreath of leaves wrapped around each hefty doorknobs, and more trailed up to the upper corners and down to the lower corners. Slowly the tendrils of branches and leaves spiraled off into rings of flame, surrounding the four sharp-scaled, fearsome-looking dragons guarding each corner of the doorframe. Sprinkled all around the foliage and reptiles were tiny little carved snowflakes, which looked somewhat out-of-place but which no one had ever really questioned.

Vague Nordic imagery at its finest.

Not that any of this was of any particular concern to the person standing behind the door, whose main focus was the rather unsatisfying size of the keyhole.

A tiny girl, her hair held back in stiff orange pigtails, was standing on her tiptoes, one enormous blue eye pressed up against the small space. She could make out the slender, purple-gowned figure of her mother, her hair braided back and wrapped gracefully around her head as it was any time there was someone around she might be trying to impress.

But the little girl, of course, had seen her mother dressed up nice before. That was hardly what interested her about the scene.

Standing beside the brunette woman was the hugest man the little girl had ever seen. Towering well over her father's height, he had arms as thick as the birch tree trunks out in the garden and a face that was made small by his sprawling, russet-colored beard, as dense and tangled as the undergrowth that grew in the forest.

As if all that wasn't peculiar enough, he was wearing some sort of long blue tunic reinforced with metal diamonds (_why would you put a bunch of metal on an article of clothing?_ she wondered. _Wouldn't that be uncomfortable?_) as well as a long cape made of bushy brown fur (she felt a sharp wave of despair thinking about all the animals that must have had to die for that) and some sort of helmet with long, sharp horns jutting from either side. From what she could hear of his voice, he was talking in a thick, rugged-sounding accent.

Whoever he was, he certainly wasn't from the kingdom.

Her curiosity piqued, she leaned even further into her already uncomfortable position, wondering what the odd man wanted with her mother. She tried to pick out what they were saying, but the big stupid door muffled most of the conversation beyond recognition.

She watched for a few more minutes, taking in every detail about the strange man. Eventually, she began to grow frustrated with simply watching the back and forth, not having gained any new insight to the thousands of questions floating around in her head.

The little girl pulled back and scrutinized the keyhole, wondering if she should make a run for the keykeeper's room and nab the keys to the drawing room, rushing back before the stranger had time to go anywhere. She had done it before, after all. She poised her short legs, preparing to dash off, before it occurred to her that perhaps it had not occurred to her dear mother to lock the door in the first place.

She smirked. Small details like that escaped the brunette woman's mind more often than not.

Standing on her tiptoes again, she grabbed onto the heavy knob and slowly turned it. To her utter delight, the door clicked open with no hesitation.

She leaned against the oak with her shoulder, struggling to push the heavy thing open, but after a few seconds she created a gap large enough for her to squeeze her small body through.

Once inside, she made a dash for the two adults, smiling giddily. The strange man regarded her with a skeptical expression, while her mother looked at her with something like embarrassment.

"Anna!" she gasped. "What are you doing in here?"

"I wanted to see who you were talking to!" Anna bubbled. "I heard his voice outside and it sounded funny."

Her mother's eyes widened in mortification. She shot an anxious glance at the man, but he only seemed mildly amused by the comment.

"Oh, er—this is Stoick the Vast, chief of the village of Berk up north."

Anna grinned. "Hi! Welcome to Arendelle. Want me to show you around the castle?"

"Oh, sweetie, we really don't have time," her mother said. "Mr. Stoick and I have to sort out some trade agreements. He can't stay for too long."

"Oh?" The young girl's eyes widened in interest.

"Boring grown-up things," her mother assured her quickly. "Nothing you would be interested in."

"Oh." Her shoulders sagged in visible disappointment. So she wasn't going to get to ask this strange man about the North after all.

It was awfully disappointing. She had heard the legends about there being dragons up there, and funny little villages with huge sentries made entirely of stone standing guard in the cold ocean.

Anna's mother and Stoick the Vast exchanged a glance, and Anna's mother squatted down and put her hands on her knees so that she could look her daughter in the eye.

"Hey, I'll tell you what. Stoick here has a son who's just about your age—he's waiting out in the garden until we're finished taking care of all our business. Why don't you go play with him? I'm sure he's getting awfully bored out there."

Anna's eyes widened. Now _this_ had her attention.

Now that she thought about it, she had never actually met another kid aside from her own sister, her first and only friend. And this boy could not only play with her, but she could ask _him_ any questions she might have about the North!

"Okay!" She bounded out of the room, giggling in excitement. If the goal of the two adults had been to get rid of the prying 5-year-old, their plan had gone swimmingly.

Anna practically skipped outside, so distracted by her thoughts that she almost crashed into a couple of statues as she went. She was finally going to make a new friend! And a cool foreigner from the _North_, at that!

When she bounced out the back door and saw the boy sitting under the tree, she caught her breath.

She had expected a smaller version of the burly man, with bulging muscles, a stocky build, and flaming red hair. Instead, she was greeted by something much more delightful and significantly less intimidating.

He had wispy brown hair hanging down all around his head in a cute, lopsided mop and a thin neck and spindly arms that all gave him an atmosphere of complete and total innocence. His attention was currently consumed by a book, much of his face hidden in it and his back curving slightly as he leaned into it. He seemed nothing like his enormous, hulking father.

Nevertheless, for a reason she couldn't quite articulate, she felt a bit nervous. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that this was the first kid she had ever met other than Elsa, and she was determined to make a good impression. Or perhaps, more embarrassingly, it was due to the fact that he was much, _much_ cuter than she expected. Not that she had become a particularly trustworthy judge of male attractiveness from having no examples to look off of except the princes in her fairy tale books, but from what she _did_ know, this boy would make a very good handsome prince when he got a bit older.

She took a deep breath, sucking her cheery enthusiasm back in and bounding over to the boy.

"Hi!" she chirped. "I'm Anna. What's your name?"

He slowly started to lift his head, and for a second she was worried that he would be annoyed with her for disrupting his reading. But when he looked up at her, his expression was more bewildered than anything, as if he had not had the faintest clue that there were kids living in the castle his father had dragged him to.

Once Anna caught sight of his eyes, she had to catch her breath again. Never in her (admittedly short) life had she seen such a lovely shade of green, like the ivy curtain coating the stone walls of the garden. She tried to think of some other flowery way to describe them, but nothing that crossed her mind seemed to do them justice.

"Uh…I'm Hiccup," he said pulling her out of her trance.

"Really?" Despite herself, she giggled. "That's a funny name!"

He looked away, fumbling with his hands in embarrassment. "My dad says dumb names frighten the trolls away. So I'm stuck being called Hiccup."

_So they have trolls up there too?_ she thought. She wondered what was so dangerous about them that kids had to be named things akin to "Belch" and "Fart" to keep them away. From what her parents had always told her about trolls, they were a kindly folk, always willing to help anyone who came upon magic troubles.

She opened her mouth to ask, but she noticed he was still avoiding her gaze, studying the grass underneath him. Anna bit her lip, suddenly worrying she had hurt his feelings.

"That's okay," she said quickly. "I think it's a cool name!"

He looked up at her, smiling a little. "You…you really think so?"

"Sure I do!" she assured him. "It's definitely more interesting than mine." She made a face. "Mine's all boring!"

He shook his head. "No, no, your name is pretty!" He regarded her curiously. "Are you the princess?"

"Yep," she replied casually, like it was the most common thing in the world.

Hiccup ducked into a hasty bow, knocking his book out of his lap. "I—I'm sorry, Your Highness—"

"Euck!" She made a face. "You don't have to do that. We're both just kids. And just call me Anna."

"Okay." He looked visibly relieved, and her smile widened.

She remembered her mother saying he was just about her age…well, _she'd_ be the judge of that. He certainly looked it, but she had to verify.

"How old are you?"

"Six," he muttered. Anna clapped her hands triumphantly. Ah, so he was close to her age!

But a whole year older…

_Wow, he must know so much!_ she thought.

"What about you?" he asked.

"Just turned five. What're you reading?" She plopped down on the grass beside him, scooting right up against him to get a better look at the book. She felt his body stiffen beside her, and when she glanced up at his face she noticed his cheeks had turned bright red.

He flipped the book shut so she could see the front cover. Practically the whole thing was taken up by a menacing three-headed red dragon, breathing three enormous columns of fire onto a village in the left rear corner, with a few people screaming out front.

"This is a book about all the dragons in Berk," he explained excitedly, starting to flip through it. Each dragon seemed to be their very own breed of scary, with all manner of combinations of spikes, sharp teeth, warty skin, jagged wings, twisting horns, and reptilian slit-pupiled eyes.

Despite her belly starting to churn fearfully, Anna couldn't look away, finding herself rapt with interest. "Whoa," she whispered.

"They're really nasty," Hiccup explained. "They're always coming into the village and stealing our sheep and setting our huts on fire. Sometimes they even kill people!" His green eyes grew wide and serious.

Anna let out a whimper. "Oh no!"

"But it's okay," he added quickly, seeing her horrified expression. "Because when kids get old enough, they get to train to be dragon fighters, and then they help keep the entire village safe. And someday I'm going to train as a dragon fighter, and then I'll be the greatest dragon fighter in all of Berk!"

Any shyness he had had before had evaporated, and he was grinning from ear to ear. Anna clapped eagerly, glad to see him so excited. "Yay!"

As her excitement for the boy began to ebb, she found herself feeling a bit wistful. She imagined Hiccup up north, standing bravely at the front of his village with a sword in one hand and a shield in the other, ready to slay dragons just like the knights in her storybooks. It had to be a life of adventure, one that a princess stuck in a castle would undoubtedly never have.

"It must be so exciting to live up there," she sighed. "Do you have to fight off trolls, too?"

Hiccup smirked. "No, the worst they ever do is steal your socks."

She tilted her head to one side, puzzled. "But people still feel like they have to give kids weird names to fend them off?"

His smirk widened. "I guess. Tough luck for me!"

She giggled, continuing to flip through Hiccup's dragon book absentmindedly. Once she neared the end, she noticed that one of the more empty pages had a drawing of a girl sketched in the corner. It was rather crude, but as far as a six-year-old's artwork went, it wasn't half bad. From what Anna could make out, she looked to have hair kept back by some kind of circular headband and bangs that covered one eye.

"Who's that?" she asked.

"Oh, that's Astrid," Hiccup replied nonchalantly. "She's a girl in my village. I'm going to marry her someday!"

Anna's eyes widened, the little redheaded girl thoroughly impressed. Hiccup was only a year older than her, and he already knew who he was going to marry?

She felt a sudden prickle of worry, wondering if by the time her sixth birthday rolled around _she_ would have to decide on a future husband. The empty castle, thoroughly devoid of any boys that weren't grown up, seemed to be a bit sparse in options.

"She's pretty," Anna conceded, although she felt an inexplicable surge of bitterness looking at the little sketch. "It's great you already have that figured out!"

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find a pretty girl to marry, too," Hiccup assured her. Anna paused, pondering that girls didn't generally marry other girls, but they probably could if they wanted.

Anna's gaze flitted back and forth between Hiccup and his drawing, and she realized that between the two of them, Astrid probably wasn't the one she would want to marry.

"So what's it like?" Hiccup asked suddenly, looking at her intently.

"What's what like?"

"Being a princess, of course!" he answered with a snort, like it was the most obvious thing on the planet. "Do you get to boss people around?"

She chuckled. "Not yet! It's pretty fun, though. I mean, my parents are always trying to make me act all proper and mannerly, and sometimes I hafta go to these boring lessons about politics and history and stuff, so that's not very fun. But I get to play with my sister and read as many books as I want from the library, so that's pretty great!"

Hiccup looked at her curiously. "You have a sister?"

"Yeah, she has the coolest snow powers and she's really fun!"

His eyes widened. "_Snow_ _powers?_"

"Well, sure, she can—_wait._" Anna stopped short and dug her fingers into the grass, a sudden idea springing into her mind. "I'll go get her and she can show you and then we can all play!"

"Really?" he asked. "She'd—she'd let me see her snow powers?"

"Of course!" Anna replied, not missing a beat. "I'm sure I could talk her into it. You wait here and I'll go get her!"

Before Hiccup could protest, Anna was back inside the castle, racing down hall after hall yelling Elsa's name. After a somewhat frantic search, Anna finally located her sister on the third floor, in one of their many playrooms.

Elsa was quite annoyed by the sudden intrusion, as she had been preoccupied building a block tower—or an entire block city, from the looks of it. She absolutely refused to leave her game at first, no matter _how_ cute or interesting the boy from way up north happened to be, but after considerable nagging on Anna's part, she finally caved and came down.

Anna practically dragged her sister into the garden, darting behind her as soon as they got outside so she could shove her toward Hiccup's tree. "I got her!" she called out. Hiccup nodded in approval.

Once they were close enough to get a good look at each other, Anna bounded into the space between them. "Hiccup, this is my sister Elsa! And Elsa, this is Hiccup, the cool Viking boy from up North!"

Hiccup's cheeks reddened at Anna's assessment. "Uh…pleased to meet you."

"You too," Elsa said, giving him a small smile.

Anna bounded back to her sister and tugged sharply on her arm. "Elsa, show him the magic!"

"Wha—_Anna!_" Elsa hissed, lowering her voice. "I can't show him! He'll tell his dad, and he'll tell our mom, and then I'm done for."

"Come onnnnnn!" Anna tugged more insistently. "He won't tell!"

"I won't," Hiccup assured them, overhearing their conversation.

"You _know_ I'm not supposed to use it like this, especially out in the open!" Elsa countered.

"Show. Him!" Anna glowered at her sister. "_Showhimshowhimshowhimshowhim!_"

"Nooooooo!"

"Do it!"

"No, Anna!"

"But it's _amazing!_"

"I can't!"

"_Pleeeeeeeeease?_" Anna gave Elsa the best puppy dog eyes she could muster. "He's really nice, he can keep a secret!"

"I don't know about this…"

"It'll be fine. I just really want him to see!"

"We'll get in so much trouble."

"Come. Ooooooonnnnnn!" Anna let out a loud sigh of exasperation. "Don't make me look like a liar, Elsa!"

"You _already_ told him that I can…?" Elsa shot a glare in her sister's direction. After a moment, she let out a defeated huff. "_Fine_. Fine, I'll do it." Anna let out a delighted screech, hopping up and down.

Slowly, she twirled her hands around each other until an iridescent white ball appeared. Anna looked over at Hiccup and watched his green eyes widen in amazement, feeling a rush of warmth in her chest. He stood up, walking over to get a closer look.

Elsa shot the white orb into the air, causing snowflakes to sprinkle down all around the garden. Hiccup looked to Anna and grinned, every bit as impressed as she hoped he would be.

"Glad you got her to come down," he murmured in Anna's ear. "This is really neat!"

The snow came down faster and faster until it had formed a tidy white blanket all across the summer garden. Hiccup was looking around wildly, taking in the drastically-changed landscape. Grinning mischievously, Anna crouched down and scooped up a handful of snow, tossing it at the back of the preoccupied boy.

He spun around, mouth curving up into a wicked grin. "Oh no, you don't!"

He scooped up some snow and shaped it into a ball twice as fast, pelting it right at her chest. She screamed as it hit, hurriedly forming two more balls to throw at him before he could hit her again. Before long, they were in a full-out snowball duel, eventually getting so into it that they were simply shoving snow into one another's faces. Anna pushing snow into Hiccup's hair a little too forcefully resulted in both of them toppling over, Anna letting out a squeak as she landed on top of the boy.

Elsa, meanwhile, had decided to freeze over the garden pond and was slipping joyously around it. She glanced back at the two younger kids throwing snow at one another, and shook her head good-naturedly. Leave it to her little sister to make best friends with any castle visitor within 20 minutes.

"Hey!" she called out. "This ice isn't gonna skate on itself!"

Two little heads popped out of the snow. Apparently they had had enough of their snow-battling, and within seconds they had joined her, sliding gleefully around the ice pond.

The three of them skated and skated and skated, completely unaware of the hard-set face that was watching them from the top of the garden wall, hidden in the shadow of a tree with his gray brow furrowed in concentration. A pudgy hand reached up to stroke his flat chin as he murmured curiously to himself.

"I wonder…"

_13 years later_

The sound of rain echoed around the murky forest, cutting sharply into the otherwise silent night. The stillness was almost suffocating, all of the animals tucked away in their burrows and all of the leaves on the trees hanging motionless in the air save for a slight tremble as fresh raindrops ran over them.

The already-dark shades of green and black were suddenly blocked out by something even darker—a shadowy figure moving quickly along a forest path. Their boots squelched unapologetically across the wet grass, and they pulled their black hood and cloak even tighter around their shoulders in a continuing attempt to keep the freezing raindrops out.

Any bystander who somehow was able to see into the stranger's dark cloak and get a good look at their face would see it was hard and determined, eyes set dead ahead and not faltering in the slightest from their destination. The back of the stranger's cloak was dragging haphazardly along the soaked grass as they went. Although they had tried to hold it up earlier, the water now seemed of little concern.

The cloaked figure passed between two mossy boulders, and halted in the middle of a clearing. They stood stiffly, waiting, as if expecting—or more demanding—to be noticed by someone.

When this had gone on for a long while and nothing of note had happened, the stranger let out an exasperated sigh.

"Come out," the hooded figure said. "I need to talk to you."

Still no movement in that still, still forest, save for the stranger's breathing and the relentless falling of the rain.

The stranger slipped a hand into their cloak and pulled out a vial of blue liquid, holding it out in front of them.

"I have payment."

At last there was a change. The ground around the clearing began to rumble, and several moss-colored rocks rolled down into it, surrounding the stranger. The hooded figure showed no sign of fear, their posture stiff and unmoving and their face expressionless.

Slowly, the rocks unrolled themselves to reveal small, gray creatures, all dressed in moss tunics and strange jewelry. The creatures whispered amongst themselves, shooting anxious glances at the stranger but saying nothing to them.

The trolls—as the strange rock creatures were called—suddenly parted, making a path for a stocky figure in a long moss cape and a weaved grass crown. The rest of the trolls quickly stepped back, allowing their king to address the stranger.

"Who are you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

"That is of no concern," the stranger said evenly. "I have come seeking information about this kingdom and its rulers. And in exchange for your help…" They leaned down, allowing the troll king to get a closer look at the vial. "I offer you this."

The troll king ran his hand across the vial, eyes widening in awe. "Dragon's blood…"

"Yes," the stranger said. "Answer my questions and it's yours."

The troll king considered, gazing at the vial for a long time.

"Very well," he grunted finally. "Give me the vial, and I will tell you what I know."

"No." The stranger's voice was like steel. "I am not giving you this vial until after you answer my questions—_all_ of them."

The troll king gave the cloaked figure an incredulous look. "Then how do I know you will give me the vial once I have given you the information you seek? It is not every day I come across someone so easily willing to give up something so exquisitely rare."

"Rare, yes, but I have no use for it," the stranger said flatly. "You, on the other hand, are experts of the supernatural, always wanting to study anything that possesses traits of it. I have no such skills to study something like this. And I am also putting myself at great risk the longer I carry around something this dangerous."

The troll king regarded the stranger thoughtfully. Although he didn't quite trust them, they made a very good point.

"I suppose that makes sense," he sighed. "All right, as you wish. But I must ask, if we could perchance go someplace a bit drier…"

"That will be fine," the stranger said.

The other trolls dispersed as the troll king led the cloaked figure under a rocky outcropping, concealed completely from the rain.

"I want you to tell me about the monarchs here," the stranger said. "What are they like?"

The troll king regarded the stranger suspiciously. "If you don't mind me asking…why would you like to know?"

The stranger hesitated slightly before answering. "I want to start a new life here," they said finally. "And before I settle down, I want to know exactly what I'm getting into. What kind of people I will be serving. It seems only fair."

The stranger reached up and seamlessly pulled their hood down. The troll king's eyes widened as he got a good look at their face, but he said nothing.

"Well, I'm sure you've heard of Elsa, the snow queen," the troll king started. "She is known across many lands, once feared for her powers of winter but now celebrated for them. And her younger sister Anna, the bumbling but kindhearted princess. Together, they are a well-loved pair of rulers, always looking out for the good of their people before anything else."

"So…Elsa has a power but Anna doesn't?"

"No, definitely not," the troll king said, his tone clipped.

"Strange. Very strange."

The stranger paused for a few seconds, contemplating.

"So how did Elsa come to have powers?"

The troll king shrugged. "Well, that's the mystery of it. No one in her family knows. She was simply born with them."

The stranger narrowed their eyes, leaning forward suddenly until their face was inches away from the troll king's.

"_You're lying,_" the stranger hissed.

The troll king bristled, face tightening with indignation. "I don't know what you're talking about! It's absolutely true, no one knows how Elsa got powers. It's simply a strange anomaly of magic."

"No, you're lying," the stranger snarled, rearing up so that they loomed over the troll king. "I can see it in your eyes. And I'm not giving you this vial until you tell me the _entire truth._"

"That's preposterous," the troll king spluttered. "Sometimes strange magical things happen, and as much as we know about the supernatural, we cannot always trace the reason—"

"Don't you try me Pabbie, King of the trolls of the Valley of the Living Rock!" the stranger roared, getting up to their full height so they towered over the troll. "I have been across seas and over rivers and through kingdoms all through this land and beyond, and _I can tell when someone is lying!_"

The troll king cowered below the stranger, eyes wide with fear.

"I—it's not proven to be true," he stammered. "We have always thought there too little evidence to indicate one way or another. But…but there _is_ one legend that might explain the origin of Elsa's powers."

Slowly, the stranger descended back into a sitting position, looking at the troll king intently.

"Well?"

He cleared his throat.

"Well, the legend says that many, many generations ago, there were two clans occupying the land that is now Arendelle. One clan was blessed by the sun, and had power over fire and flame. The other clan was blessed by the moon, and had power over ice and snow.

"Unsurprisingly, these two most opposite of elements were bitter enemies. They fought over everything they possibly could—land, food, water, medicine, furs, you name it. In theory, they each had their own territories, but of course the boundaries were very flimsy, and when they weren't fighting over their ever-changing borders, they were attempting to steal one another's resources.

"This war went on for many, many years, and the fighting became so bloody that both clans began to shrink, continually killing one another off. The sun and the moon began to worry that their people would disappear eventually if the fighting continued. Although the two deities were far from friends, they conspired together to do something about it.

"The sun and the moon caused a girl from the fire tribe and a boy from the ice tribe to fall in love, hoping their marriage would unite the clans and stop the fighting. Although the clans were averse to the love at first and not eager to end their feud, they eventually came around, and the boy and girl's marriage did indeed unite the clans. The united clan did, unsurprisingly, eventually become Arendelle.

"The shocking thing was that once the boy and girl finally had children, none of them had any powers at all. The elders of the new united clan eventually concluded that this must be because their parents' powers cancelled each other out, so to speak. Any ice the children might have had in them was melted by their fire, and any fire they might have had in them was put out by the water of the ice. A perfect balance resulting in completely powerless children.

"However…" At this the troll king bit his lip, hesitating slightly. "There have been times when a child is born, and seemingly the dormant powers emerge. The best explanation is that the child gets an especially heavy dose of fire or ice powers from their parent from the original family line, and there is not enough of the opposite power to conceal it."

"So that's what happened with Elsa," the stranger guessed.

"No, no, it is much more complicated than that," the troll king argued. "You see, the powered children always come in twos. One gets too heavy a dose of ice powers and not enough fire powers, and the other gets a heavy dose of fire powers and not enough ice powers. In every documented case of this happening throughout Arendelle's history, there has always been a fire sibling and an ice sibling. The parent descended from the fire girl and ice boy gives too much of one, and then too much of the other."

"So…if Elsa's powers are caused by the legend…Anna should have fire powers," the stranger realized.

"Precisely," the troll king said. "And she does not, so Elsa's powers must have another cause."

"She could, though," the stranger argued.

The troll king gave the stranger a puzzled look. "What do you mean?"

"Anna could have powers. They just haven't emerged yet."

The troll king snorted dismissively. "Oh nonsense, they would have emerged by this age! Anna is eighteen. Elsa's powers started showing themselves when she was _five!_ Besides, the last case of a fire and ice sibling was _generations_ ago. That's why the legend has all but died out, apart from a few elders who know it."

"Mm." The stranger didn't seem entirely convinced, but also didn't seem to want to argue.

"So I heard that years ago, you helped cure the royal family of a magical injury. I want to know more about that."

The troll king hesitated, wondering if telling the story would be betraying the trust of his king, but the stranger fixed him with a gaze so intense that he quickly decided it didn't matter.

"Well, when they were children, Elsa accidentally shot Anna with her magic while they were playing," he explained. "The king and queen took Anna to me to heal, and I erased her memories of magic and warned them about how Elsa's power would grow and she needed to learn to control it."

The troll king let out a sigh. "The king told me he was going to isolate her, reduce the castle staff and limit her contact with people until she learned to control her powers. I do wish I had told him that wasn't the right thing to do…poor thing was probably shut away for years. But at the time, I didn't think it was my place to question the king's judgement."

"So she was all alone…" the stranger murmured. "All those years…"

"Well, I'm not positive, but that's what it sounded like her parents wanted. Not that she has issues with that anymore now that the castle gates are open to all."

"I see."

There was a short pause. The stranger reached into their cloak and withdrew the vial again.

"Thank you. That's all I needed to know."

The troll king took the vial from the stranger, staring at it in wonder.

"If you don't mind me asking…" he said slowly. "How did you get this?"

"Brought down a dragon up north. In Viking territory," the stranger said without missing a beat. "Pretty difficult to kill the thing, but I managed."

The stranger stood up, pulling their cloak back up over their head. "I should be going," they said tonelessly.

The stranger turned and walked out of the outcropping without another word. In seconds they disappeared seamlessly into the rainy night, leaving the troll king still staring at the bright blue vial, turning it over and over again through his thick fingers.

* * *

**Fun fact: This prologue chapter originally wasn't planned to be part of the story, but then I added it in a bit later so that Hiccup and Anna have a bit of a history so it gives them a reason to bond more quickly when they meet up again later. Besides, adorable child!Anna and child!Hiccup making friends and playing with each other is the kind of shit I absolutely LIVE for, FIGHT ME. The whole shebam takes place before Anna's ice magic accident, if it isn't immediately obvious. I'm just gonna go with Anna being 6 and Elsa being 9 when said accident happened.**

**Also *Taylor Swift voice* hey kids, ominous foreshadowing is FUN!**

**To remedy the issue of the story not actually being complete, updates will be slow to start out, just so I can keep a consistent submission schedule while leaving my lazy, unmotivated ass enough of a realistic buffer period to actually finish on time to add newer chapters on the schedule. I'll start out with…once a month? Updates may become more frequent later on, depending on how much progress I'm making with the last 10 chapters over the next year or so.**

**Despite my semi-griping earlier, I'm actually very curious to see how much of Anna's Frozen 2 characterization/character development lines up with what I predicted for her post-Frozen in this story. More on that later. (For context, the story proper takes place about a year and a half after the events of Frozen).**

**HHHHHAHAHAHAHA IT'S ALL CUTE AND INNOCENT NOW BUT JUST Y'ALL WAIT UNTIL LATER**


	2. Chapter 1 - Strange Happenings

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

_What a boring day!_

Anna let out a huff of annoyance, pressing herself up against the corridor wall. Out of all the days her sister could get bogged down with paperwork and other political mumbo-jumbo, it _had_ to be one of the days Kristoff went up into the mountains to harvest ice all day long, taking Sven and Olaf with him. Anna had been left to entertain herself, and after reading several books in the library for the umpteenth time, she was bored out of her mind.

She slid down the wall and onto the floor, thoughts straying to the ice harvester. She couldn't help but worry that perhaps Kristoff's prolonged trips to the mountains as of late was because he was avoiding her.

Their breakup had been an amicable one, and both had agreed they were better off as friends. It was an almost laughable concept now, the socially-deprived ice harvester and the recently heartbroken princess, latching onto each other and trying to fill an empty hole with the first person they saw.

As it had turned out, it was much more complicated than that. No matter how much Anna wanted a replacement for Hans and Kristoff wanted a girlfriend to bring home to his troll family, their relationship was empty of any passion or excitement, doing well to form a strong platonic bond and not much beyond that.

Nevertheless, Anna gathered that Kristoff's feelings were a bit hurt.

She sighed, guilt beginning to eat away at her. The last thing she had intended to do was hurt the poor boy who had gone out of his way to take her to her sister's castle, but that seemed to be how things had unfolded.

Anna really did hope he wasn't going to avoid her. It was nice to have someone to do things with besides Elsa, and she had grown to really enjoy his company. Besides, dry and barren relationship aside, she was quite fond of him as a friend.

Well, she didn't need to think about any of that right then, she decided. Maybe Elsa was done with all that paperwork by now.

Pushing all thoughts of her ex-boyfriend from her mind, Anna stood up, brushed herself off, and set off down the corridor.

She skirted through a series of hallways until she came to a familiar blue-patterned white door. Grinning eagerly, she rapped on it a few times, just as she had frequently done when she was younger.

A familiar pale face, framed by a curtain of chocolate-brown hair, greeted her when the door opened. Anna smiled politely, attempting to hide her disappointment at seeing the queen's new lady-in-waiting instead of Elsa herself.

"Hi, Victoria," she said cheerily. "Is Elsa in there?"

Victoria shook her head. "No, she's still attending to her duties, I'm afraid. She should be done in a couple hours. I'm tidying her room up for her for when she gets back."

Anna clapped her hands. "Well, that's lovely! Thank you for that."

"Oh, no problem at all." Victoria smiled broadly. For just a moment she seemed to be searching Anna's face, leaving her feeling oddly exposed.

Anna shook the feeling off, mentally scolding herself.

Victoria's appearance was somewhat striking, with dark hair contrasting unusually pallid skin and a bluish-violet gaze so intense that it often came across as a little unnerving. Still, Anna knew it was no excuse to let her imagination get the better of her.

As it had a history of doing, more often than not. You had to grant your mind the freedom to wander in all sorts of different directions when you were trapped within a castle's walls for years and years.

"It was very kind of you to come and check up on her," the lady-in-waiting added sweetly. "I know she can get awfully stressed by these things."

"Right, right." Anna nodded hurriedly, beginning to scoot awkwardly away. "Well, if she's not here, I guess I'll just…um…get going…"

Her awkward scooting increased in speed until she was shuffling full speed down the hall, Victoria's eyes boring into her curiously as she went. At last she turned and walked away, neatly rounding a corner and disappearing from the maidservant's sight.

As she walked away, she sighed. Anna had to admit she was quite grateful for what Victoria had done for Elsa.

The girl's timing had been serendipitous, arriving not long after Anna and Elsa had re-opened the gates and requesting to work in the castle. After a month or so of trying to assist the newly-enlarged staff, it was decided that the other servants had the basic housekeeping of the castle under control, and Victoria would be Elsa's new lady-in-waiting.

Having grown up isolated and locked away, the queen had never had one for her parent's fear of her accidentally freezing her or some such thing. The castle staff had insisted that with the danger of her powers quelled, it was high time she finally got a maidservant, as any proper queen should have one. (Anna herself didn't have a lady-in-waiting, but she understood that it was of much higher priority to get one for the queen than for the princess.)

Within the few months they had spent together, Elsa and Victoria had become quite close. Despite the increasing amount of time Elsa was spending with her handmaiden, Anna couldn't find it in herself to be jealous. She knew how badly Elsa craved any sort of company after being alone for so long, and if that company didn't always come from her, that was all right. She knew once her sister came out of hiding she would find tons of people who would love her, and make all sorts of new friends.

And Anna wanted nothing but that for her, honestly. If Victoria was someone else who saw how amazing Elsa was and was a supportive friend to her, Anna didn't think it was any less than her sister deserved.

Arriving at the spiral staircase, she swung herself onto the banister and slid down. After just barely avoiding crashing into one of the suits of armor, Anna wandered her way to the kitchen. She rapped on the door a few times before bouncing in without any actual invitation to do so.

"Hi, Lucille!" she bubbled.

The blonde chef's head spun around in Anna's direction as she pulled a tray of fresh rolls out of the oven. Her face shown with a brief surprise at being interrupted before she recognized the girl standing in the doorway.

"Hello, Ms. Anna!" she greeted. Anna had told Lucille many times to call her Anna instead of the stuffy "Your Majesty," and at last the cook had settled on "Ms. Anna," which respected the princess's wishes but had, to Lucille's thinking, an appropriate degree of formality.

"Mind if I help you with dinner?" Anna asked, trotting over to where Lucille was holding the tray of rolls and regarding them thoughtfully.

Lucille frowned. "Oh no, Ms. Anna, I feel with your high standing it would be rather inappropriate for you to engage in such…lowly work."

What Lucille _didn't_ mention was how her refusal of the help was due in larger part to the time Anna had managed to spill an entire keg of wine all over a platter of freshly-baked bread and newly-picked fruit and then proceeded to knock the whole thing onto the floor, or the time Anna had somehow set an entire roast pig that was to be that night's feast for guests on fire, than the princess's royal standing.

"Awww." Anna's shoulders slumped in disappointment. Not that cooking was a particularly favorite or successful pastime, but it would have given her a way to fill the empty hours.

Lucille chuckled. "No, don't you worry about your supper, Princess. It's my job to see to that. You have much more important things to do, I'm sure."

Anna rubbed the back of her head. "Well, not at the moment," she admitted. "Elsa's taking care of all that business." She smirked. "I offered to help her fill out the paperwork, but she says my handwriting looks like chicken scratch."

Lucille laughed, making her plump belly shake under her apron. "Oh, dear."

"Can I at least look around?" Anna asked. "I'm curious what we're having for dinner."

"Oh, go ahead, dear," the cook said, waving a hand dismissively. "Just be careful not to hurt yourself."

Anna walked along the counter, running her hand over the brass top. At the end was a hefty basket of fruit, filled with grapes and apples and pears and all sorts of other fruits sent in from the warmer countries down south. Anna wondered briefly what it must be like to live down there, with fruit bursting from the trees all year round and no winter looming just over the horizon.

She wandered past an enormous, boiling pot of cheese fondue and squeaked, giving a tiny hop of excitement. She nodded approvingly at the two loaves of bread beside it, feeling her mouth start to water.

After getting a good look at the kitchenware and the beginnings of the feast, she found herself approaching the stone oven at the back of the room. It was enormous, stretching into a chimney that protruded into the ceiling and with a whole row of little windows looking inside, protective metal grates keeping the fire from escaping. There were a few pheasants roasting in it at the moment, turning slowly, almost mechanically around on skewers.

Anna found her eyes had become suddenly fixated on the flames.

There was something about the rhythmic yet chaotic way they were ebbing and flowing, licking at nothing only to disappear into the air and rise out of the logs again, merging and splitting from one another at a moment's notice. Showers of sparks spluttered up from the fire every so often, like tiny tangerine-colored fireworks exploding into a stony sky.

She leaned in, trying to get a closer look at the ever-changing orange tongues. There was something almost hypnotic about the way they moved with no pattern, broke and reformed with no warning, shone brightly with no sunlight.

Eyes still wide and transfixed, Anna's hand began to inch forward. She wanted to snatch one of the twisting, light-filled flames for herself, to capture it and keep it where it could always cut through any darkness, earning awed stares from everyone around her.

Her hand continued forward, finally colliding with one of the metal grates. Her fingers curled around it and squeezed it tightly, drinking in its warmth. Slowly, she extended them again, still trying to grab at one of the licking flames…

"MS. ANNA! WHAT ARE YOU _DOING?_"

Lucille's scream pulled her out of whatever strange trance she had been in. The heat of the fire suddenly hit her hand with full force and she yelped sharply, yanking it out of the grate.

She turned her hand over and stared at it in horror, the skin contorted by huge pinkish-red burns. She gritted her teeth, waiting for the searing pain to come.

Strangely enough, it didn't seem to. Her hand merely felt like she had perhaps let it sit in the same patch of sunlight too long, overheating it just enough to be uncomfortable.

Lucille smashed the tray of rolls down and ran over to the princess, staring at her hand in concern before glowering at her.

"What on earth is wrong with you? Don't you know not to go sticking your hand into an oven without protective mitts on? Every child learns that when they're four years old!"

Anna's eyes widened in fear. "I—I'm sorry, I just…I didn't mean to…I don't know what came over me…"

She blinked a few times, studying the completely normal oven that she had seen a thousand times before. It now seemed just as uninteresting as usual, completely devoid of whatever quality had possessed her to stick her hand inside it.

_What the hell just happened?_

Lucille's glare didn't falter in the slightest, indicating that she was not at all convinced that the incident had been anything but the result of Anna's own stupidity. "Well, be more careful, will you? I have enough to worry about without being held responsible for the princess burning her hand off."

Anna studied the ground, her stomach starting to squirm uncomfortably. "I'm really sorry, Lucille. I don't want to cause you any trouble." She fidgeted with her dress with her good hand. "I'll go."

The cook's expression softened slightly. "Well, I suppose we all do foolish things without thinking sometimes. What were you trying to do, Ms. Anna?"

Anna hesitated. Saying "grabbing a flame" would only make her sound like more of an idiot.

"I…don't know," she settled for. "It all happened so fast…like I was in this weird trance…I…" She creased her brow, trying to look like she was trying hard to recall the details of the event that just transpired. "I can't remember what I was thinking."

Lucille gave her a look that was utterly puzzled, but dissolved into a teasing smile when she seemed to realize that the princess really couldn't give her any more information on the strange incident.

"Were you so eager to sample some of that delicious roast pheasant that you couldn't even wait for me to pull it out of the oven?"

Anna smiled, grateful for the cook's attempt to lighten the atmosphere. "Something like that."

Lucille clucked a few times, shaking her head. "Well, perhaps it's better if you give ovens a wide berth from now on," she sighed, patting Anna affectionately on the back. "I hear that some others have irresistible smells coming from them as well."

Anna chuckled. "I'll definitely keep that in mind."

"Now!" Lucille clapped her hands before pointing at the door. "I must request that you leave my kitchen at once, so I can finish cooking your dinner in peace without getting another near-heart attack!"

"I think that's reasonable," Anna replied as the cook returned to her tray of rolls.

As she was walking toward the door, she stole a glance at her seared hand and just barely stopped herself from letting out a startled yelp. The burns, so raw and bulging before, had vanished entirely, seemingly swallowed up by her flesh to be spotlessly replaced with her normal fair skin.

If Anna wasn't concerned already, she was now.

She stopped by the sink and ran some cold water over the hand she had stuck in, feeling more anxious than happy that it didn't sting the slightest bit. It didn't feel any different than when she washed her hands before dinner.

"Oh, Dear!" Lucille turned and looked at the princess over her shoulder as she approached the door. "Would you like some poultice to put on your hand before you go? I have some stored for incidents like this."

"Oh…uh…" Anna laughed nervously. "No thanks! I'll go see the nurse. I don't want to cause you any more trouble."

"Oh, it's really no trouble—"

"No, I'll be fine, really," she said quickly.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. Don't worry about me." She gave Lucille a reassuring smile.

Lucille nodded. "All right. You take care, Ms. Anna."

"I will!" She nodded eagerly. "I'll see you later, Lucille. Thanks for cooking such a great dinner."

"Always my pleasure!"

Anna slipped out of the kitchen door, shutting it heavily behind her. Leaning against the wall, she let out a long breath.

_Okay. Deep breaths, Anna. Maybe someone put some weird spell on the oven and it hypnotizes you and then causes self-healing burns for some reason?_

It certainly seemed strange, but Anna decided it was best not to dwell on it. Perhaps it was nothing more than some pranking wizard sneaking into the castle and putting bizarre spells on things. It was nothing that Elsa and the servants wouldn't figure out and contact another wizard to fix in a few days' time.

Certainly not a frequent occurrence, but definitely one that was possible, given the open gates. Other magic users did pass through town from time to time, although most had better things to do than cast odd enchantments on castle ovens.

Anna shot an anxious glance back at the kitchen door, wondering if she should warn Lucille about the oven. Biting her lip, she decided against it, figuring the cook wouldn't believe her.

_Well…maybe I'll warn her later. Once I figure out how to phrase it in a way that doesn't sound ridiculous. Or once I'm absolutely sure that I didn't just hallucinate this whole thing…_

Letting out another breath, she started down the hallway, intent on finding the nearest place (that wasn't the kitchen) to get the biggest glass of water she could find. She must have been getting dehydrated.

_Deep breaths, Anna. It was probably nothing to worry about._

* * *

Anna's grip on the thick book loosened, allowing it to slide out of her hand and off of the bed. She watched it tiredly as it smacked onto the floor, opening up to a random page of some knight sticking his sword into a dragon's throat. She flopped down onto her bed, letting out a long groan.

She had had time to plow through not one, not two, but _three_ library books (all ones that she had read many times before and was getting slightly bored of), and Elsa still had not finished her queenly duties for the day. Anna was fast running out of ways to occupy herself, with most of the servants refusing her help, the library books becoming less and less riveting with every read, and her quickly running out of castle paintings to look at.

There was a certain bite in the late autumn air today, making any day out in the kingdom seem unappealing. Maybe it was her laziness speaking, or maybe she just wasn't in the mood to brave the cold. Either way, that nixed roaming around Arendelle entertaining herself as a desirable option.

She puffed out her lip, pouting. _Elsa…why won't you just be done already?_

Huffing, Anna swung her legs around out of her bed and got to her feet. She trod over to her window, leaning her hands up against the sill.

The sun was starting to set, casting a peach glow over the bank of clouds above the distant fjords and causing the quivering amber and golden leaves of the forest to blaze like fire. The ice of the frozen lake in the forest glittered like a diamond, almost blindingly. Anna worked her fingernails against the wood.

_It's getting dark…Kristoff should be back soon, right?_

Her eyes strayed down from the sprawling forest to the kingdom square just over the water. She watched the people moving to and fro between the buildings for a long while, searching for a familiar navy blue sleigh.

The peach clouds turned red, and then purple, and then blue, and then gray, and still no sign of any sleighs pulled by feisty reindeer.

Anna let out a sharp grunt of frustration, pulling her hands back and slamming them against the windowsill.

The smack of her hands against the wood was followed by an odd crackling noise, which ebbed out into what sounded almost like sizzling. Anna froze, cold sweat starting to seep out of her skin.

_Wait…what?_

She slowly let her eyes drift down to where her hands were.

A dark cloud surrounded them, the wood of the windowsill she had touched charred to a shiny gray-black. She pulled a hand back and gently brushed her fingers against the dark spot, only for an enormous chunk of her sill to crumble off in black flecks.

Anna screamed, her fingers digging into the sill in panic. Another hiss and crackle and a few brief flashes of orange, and the blackened spot had spread.

She yelped, leaping back and jerking her hands away from the sill. She started to back away toward her bed, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

"What is _happening_?" she whimpered. She collapsed onto her bed and wrapped her arms tightly around her chest.

The oven—that stupid, mind-meddling oven. It must have done something to her.

"No, no, no…this can't be happening…I can't be…"

She looked back at her charred windowsill, starting to feel sick to her stomach.

_I burned something. Without any fire…_

She brought her knees up to her chin, curling into herself as though it could hide her from the rest of the world.

After a few minutes of hyperventilating, Anna glanced up at her singed windowsill again, and then at her closed door.

_I'm hallucinating,_ she decided suddenly. _I must have eaten something bad, because I've been hallucinating all afternoon. Maybe some fresh air will clear my head…even if it _is_ freezing cold out._

Well, no matter. Maybe the frigid night would help snap her out of it, like a hearty wake-up slap.

Anna practically flung herself through her bedroom door, slamming it shut behind her. She bolted down the hallway and down a staircase, mapping out the fastest path to the castle gardens in her mind.

She was rounding a corner at top speed when she came into unexpected full bodily contact with another human being, causing them both to let out an alarmed squawk. Anna fell hard on her rear, looking up to see her sister standing over her.

"Anna!"

"Oh, hi Elsa."

"You seem in a hurry." Elsa frowned. "Is everything all right?"

"What…? Oh! Oh yeah!" Anna forced the biggest smile she could manage. "Everything is absolutely fine! I just need some fresh air, that's all."

"And you're…_running_ outside?" Elsa raised an eyebrow.

"Well, you can never be in too much of a hurry to experience the beauty of nature!" Anna replied, pumping her fist and grinning.

Elsa reached out a hand to help Anna up. "You're shaking," she noticed.

"Oh yeah!" Anna said quickly. "With _excitement!_"

Elsa gave her an annoyed look. "Yes, because I'm sure you're absolutely _jazzed_ to go do something you do all the time." Her expression turned to one of concern. "Come on Anna, I can tell you're on edge. Tell me what's wrong."

"Hey." Anna tried to calm her frayed nerves, giving her sister the most genuine smile she could manage. "Everything's fine, all right? I'm just a bit antsy from being cooped up all day."

Elsa rolled her eyes. "And whose fault was that?"

Anna glared at her. "Hey, shut up! I didn't realize I was getting cabin fever until a few minutes ago."

"I can tell," Elsa said, looking her up and down. "But…are you absolutely sure you're all right?"

"Yes, yes, everything's great!" Anna assured her quickly. "But you know, the night sky's not going to look at itself. I should get going! Bye!"

Before Elsa could ask any more prying questions, Anna raced off down the hallway.

She made her way through a few more corridors, letting out an enormous sigh of relief when she finally erupted from the castle's back door and into the cold air of the autumn night.

Quietly Anna settled down on the grass, ignoring the sting of the air around her and the uncontrollable trembling of her hands to focus solely on the vast, star-painted sky above her.

* * *

Anna slipped her hand onto the door handle. Although she was shivering from head to toe, she was smiling widely.

_Okay, I think that cleared my head. I needed that._

Taking a deep breath, she pushed her door open.

The smile melted off of her face.

She walked slowly over to the windowsill, brushing against it with her fingers. Her hand came away coated in soot.

"Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no…"

A sharp knocking at the door made her jump. She spun around, making sure her body was obscuring the charred slot from the line of sight of anyone who might be standing outside.

"Uh…come in!"

Elsa opened the door. "Hey," she greeted. "Feeling better?"

"Definitely," Anna said, nodding vigorously. "I think a walk outside was all I needed. I was just really restless."

Apparently her full-on beam must have been convincing, because Elsa didn't pry.

"I'm glad." Elsa smiled. "But remember, if anything really is bothering you, feel free to talk to me about it."

"Sure I will!" _Not._

The last thing she wanted to do was stress her sister out with today's…general oddness, whether it was in her head or not. Elsa had enough on her plate as it was.

_I'm not dragging her into this. I'll figure it out myself._

Elsa's expression suddenly grew apologetic. "Hey, listen, Anna…I'm sorry, but I don't think I'll be able to go night-sailing with you like we talked about. I'm just too tired from all my work today."

"That's all right," Anna replied, shrugging. "Being queen and stuff always comes first."

"Maybe tomorrow?" Elsa suggested. "Or whenever it warms up a little? It's a bit cold for sailing tonight anyway, but we should have just a few more warm nights before winter sets in."

Anna nodded. "Sure thing. I'd like that!"

"All right." The blonde started to close the door. "Good night, then."

"Good night."

Anna's smile dissolved completely as Elsa left the room. She stumbled over to her bed and collapsed onto it, shooting one last anxious glance at the burned windowsill.

Well, it looked like it was there. It _felt_ like it was there. But the whole incident—that and the oven both—was such a bizarre anomaly that she could scarcely bring herself to believe it.

Maybe she really _was_ just starting to lose her mind. For some reason.

_I think a trip to the nurse is definitely in order tomorrow._

* * *

**First of all, HAPPY YULE/HANUKKAH/CHRISTMAS/KWANZAA/WHATEVER WINTER HOLIDAY YOU CELEBRATE, EVERYONE! And if you DON'T celebrate a winter holiday, I would highly recommend finding at least 1 to celebrate because this is a very cold and dreary and gloomy time of year, and the only way to make it better is by mass amounts of partying and eating and drinking warm beverages. Trust me, I now these things, I'm a winter holidayologist. It's a legit profession, I make millions.  
****Lmao I knew I was going to get questions in the reviews like "what happened to Anna and Kristoff's relationship in this timeline?" so I decided to just answer them in like the first 5 seconds of the story proper so people can't ask them later XD Tbh I feel like Anna and Kristoff's breakup wouldn't be anything too dramatic like "OHHHH YOU CHEATED ON ME/OHHHHH YOU BETRAYED ME CUZ YOU NEVER REALLY LOVED ME", it would just be…simple compatibility and chemistry issues that kinda got overlooked initially because of the kinda adrenaline-induced attraction stemming from Kristoff going all Dulcinea Effect on Anna when she was literally dying. I feel like it's not uncommon to develop feelings for someone when you go through a traumatic experience like that together, but how well they'd do in the long-term? That's a WHOLE different story honestly. Tried to sum up pretty quick here how I think it would go.  
****(And fwiw Frozen 2 did NOT convince me at ALL these two would actually work as a long-term couple lmao, they still have 0 chemistry in the second movie and all their "romantic" interactions kinda felt like stock romantic interactions, like Disney was trying too hard to convince me "look, they're in love! THEY'RE IN LOVE! WE PROMISE!" and I'm just like "are they tho")  
****It's kind of ironic honestly, in the process of writing this I had a relationship that ended up playing out really similarly to how I imagine Anna's and Kristoff's would go: We liked each other a ton platonically, but in the end it fell through because there were compatibility issues, the chemistry was kinda lacking, and ultimately it felt like it was "missing" something romantically, so to speak. We're still really close friends, which is definitely how I imagine Anna and Kristoff would be after they broke up. I feel like you're gonna bond with someone pretty closely regardless when you go on a mountain quest with them and then they save you from freezing to death lol  
****Apologies if this chapter is a bit on the exposition-y side—there was kind of a lot I wanted to cover right off the bat to reduce infodumping later on and give some proper context for the events of the story. The rest of the exposition/explanations will be much more spread out, I promise! Also, for those of you wondering where Hiccup is—these first few chapters are Anna-centric, but Hiccup will be along soon enough, I promise! This is a Hiccanna fic, after all—I just wanted to pretty solidly interoduce Anna's conflict before Hiccup comes in.  
****Also, as far as the timeline of this story goes—the first Frozen movie is canon in this, but NOT Frozen Fever (because Kristoff and Anna aren't together anymore at that point) or Frozen 2. As for the How To Train Your Dragon timeline—well, that's a little more muddled. You'll see why.  
****It's kinda weird but honestly one of my favorite things about writing fanfic is coming up with one-off minor characters—like it's a nice little exercise in character creation that you don't have to commit too much, but it's a nice chance to try and make a character who shows a believable/interesting personality even with just a glimpse of screen time. Honestly, writing Anna's interactions with one-off characters in this story was often a much-needed break from all the interaction she has with Hiccup later on! There's definitely a different dynamic going on between Anna and other characters.  
****Honestly something I really like about Elsa is her understated snark, so I wrote it pretty shamelessly into her character here XD (ALSO a very good reason I think she'd get along GREAT with Flynn Rider—don't get me wrong, as much as I love the idea of Gay!Elsa, I love the idea of mostly-gay-Elsa-but-straight-for-Flynn-Rider-and-no-one-else much more, lol)  
****Honestly, Anna's whole problem-solving approach of THIS IS FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE I CAN SOLVE THIS ON MY OWN DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME is honestly such a goddamn Mood. And we will be seeing more of it in the next chapter XD**


	3. Chapter 2 - Emergence

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

Anna nestled deeper into her covers as she felt the sunlight stream through the window, falling into a large, obnoxious square on her bed. Perhaps, she thought, she would have gone and drawn her window blinds shut if it didn't require getting up.

It was a long while before she finally opened her eyes, sitting up and stretching.

Anna wondered idly when she had gone to bed.

She concluded that the most logical explanation was that the entirety of the previous day's events was just some bizarre dream and she had gone to bed what felt like a day ago. That's what made the most sense, anyhow.

_Just a crazy dream. See, my windowsill isn't even—_

She glanced over at her window and felt her stomach twist itself into ropes. The blackened spot was still there.

Her heart sank like a river rock. It looked as though a trip to the nurse was still on the agenda.

Sighing, she stood up, walking over to her window. Leaning down, she scrutinized the charred wood, running her hands over it again.

It was too detailed to be a hallucination, the edges too jagged and the patterns of the ash too imperfect. And the dusty texture of the black coming off onto her hands felt far too real.

And it was at that moment that something clicked.

_Elsa has ice powers, so it would make sense for her sister to have…_

The pieces came together so abruptly and so forcefully that she wanted nothing more than to smack herself in the face for not having guessed it sooner.

_Fire powers. No shit._

Anna bit her lip. Well, this has suddenly made her entire life much more complicated than she had ever anticipated.

She looked from the palms of her hands to the charred wood, and back again. _But why now?_

Someone knocked on her door loudly, making her start.

"Princess Anna! Breakfast is ready if you want to come and eat any."

"Uh…okay, I'll be down in a minute!"

She leaned up against the wall, taking several deep breaths.

_I can't let anyone know about this. If people freak out near as much as they did about Elsa's powers…_

Rubbing her hands together and trying to stay as calm as she could manage, Anna headed down to the dining hall.

The breakfast wasn't anything remarkable, just some scrambled eggs and sausage Lucille had seemed to throw together. Not that Anna minded. She usually slept right through breakfast, so it was notable for her to be eating it at all.

"You're up early," Elsa commented as Victoria set down a plate of food in front of her.

"Oh. Yeah. I guess so." She shrugged nonchalantly, giving her sister an indifferent smile.

"That's good!" Elsa chuckled. "I usually don't get to see you until lunch."

"Right!"

Victoria slipped a plate of food in front of Anna, and she eagerly snatched up her fork.

As soon as her fingers made contact with the metal, there was a small, sharp pop, and a few tiny sparks flew out into the air before dissolving into nothingness. Wincing, Anna looked over at Elsa, but to her relief the blonde was thoroughly wrapped up in eating her own food.

As she punched her fork into a piece of sausage and brought it up to her mouth, her fingers rubbed involuntarily against the metal appliance, emitting a few more tiny pops and sending out a couple of miniscule spark showers. Anna stiffened, but continued to eat.

_It's all right! I mean, I can barely see the sparks, let alone someone who's any distance away, right? No one's going to notice!_

She cheerfully continued her breakfast, paying no mind to the flecks of orange sputtering from her fork every few seconds or so.

Anna had cleared most of her eggs off the plate when she stopped mid-chew, feeling an intense eye boring into her. She looked up to see Victoria squinting at her, purple-blue eyes seeming to speculate her every move.

"What?" she asked, quickly setting down her fork.

Victoria opened her mouth to say something but quickly shook her head, seeming to banish the thought.

"Nothing, Your Highness," she said politely. "I thought I saw something strange, but I believe it was a trick of the light."

"All right."

Anna waited until Victoria had directed her attention to sweeping the dining room floor to continue eating, her entire body starting to tense.

Had Victoria gotten a good look at the fork sparks and decided to not say anything about it?

_Probably._ Anna groaned internally. Well, she shouldn't have been too surprised, she figured, but hiding this was going to be harder than she thought.

Anna shoveled the rest of her breakfast into her mouth as quickly as she could, hurrying to finish before Victoria decided to return her notice to the princess. She abruptly stood up, pushing her chair in.

"Well, that was delicious! Thanks, Lucille!" She nodded at the cook standing behind the table, who beamed. "Well now, if everyone doesn't mind, I think I'm gonna head outside."

Elsa looked at her, expression a mixture of puzzlement and slight hurt. "You know, Anna, you don't _have_ to leave right away."

"Well, wouldn't you know it, the cabin fever's kicking in again!" She forced a laugh. "Always coming at the most inconvenient times. Er…don't mind me!"

Elsa frowned. "Anna…"

"Hey, come on! You'll see me at lunch!" she insisted, her forced smile widening.

Her sister gave her a funny look, and she could tell what she was thinking. She was probably going to ask about her being uncharacteristically quiet, barely saying a word while shoving food into her mouth as quickly as she could.

Well, she was hardly going to explain it was because she didn't want to call any attention to her face, and by proximity her sparking fork.

"Are you going to stay longer then?" Elsa's voice was teasing, but Anna picked up the slightest hint of pleading in her ice-blue eyes.

"I'll certainly try!" _Who knows, maybe if I put my mind to getting a handle on this, I can have it under control by lunchtime._

"Well, I should be heading out," she finished, clapping her hands. "Can't let that cabin fever, ya know, suffocate me to death! Or whatever it is that cabin fever does. See you later, Elsa!"

Elsa looked as though she was about to say something else, but Anna was already on her way out of the room before she could.

She hurriedly made her way up to her room to get a cloak, trying to calm her fraying nerves.

_Hey, you know, maybe it's not even that big of a deal. All I need to do is think about love, right? I mean, that's what Elsa did! I can do that too, and then I can get this thing to do whatever I want._

It seemed a bit too simplistic, but it wasn't as though that had stopped it from being the solution that solved all the problems that had been plaguing Elsa for years and years.

_Okay. Think about love. Think about Elsa and Olaf and Sven and…_

She bit her lip. Love seemed like a bit of a strong word to describe what she had had with Kristoff. At least…love in the traditionally overdramatic, marriage-soulmate what-have-you sense she was used to.

She chuckled to herself, shaking her head. She remembered a time when all that nonsense seemed like the most important thing in the world.

Maybe platonic love would suffice for controlling a supernatural power?

Well, she would take any of this "love" she could get.

As she pulled her pink cloak over her shoulders, she started to relax slightly.

_Yes! Just think about the four of them and how much fun you have with them and how grateful you are to have them and how much you like them and all that stuff._

The garden was relatively quiet, as it always was this time of year. The only noises seemed to be the rattling of the dead leaves in the wind, and the brushing of them against the ground as they fell from the trees. Most of the garden's usual residents—such as the duck family that resided in the pond—were tucked away deep in their burrows or hidden under the dead reeds.

She settled down by the willow tree hanging over the pond, the wisp-like leaves forming tiny yellow streaks in the water when they fell. The pond hadn't frozen over yet, but it was expected that it would any day now.

Anna decided to take advantage of one of the last times it would be liquid.

Taking a shaky breath, she started to twirl her hands around in the same way Elsa did when she was summoning her powers. Although she knew it was coming, she still let out a tiny involuntary gasp of surprise when the ball of fire appeared between her hands.

Carefully, she cupped her hands together so that the ball latched onto them and became a rippling flame.

Closing her eyes, she thought as hard as she could about her friends and her sister. She replayed every memory of them in her mind over and over and over, listening to the crackling in her hands and waiting for it to die down.

No matter how many memories she pulled from her mind, the crackling didn't change.

Anna opened her eyes to find the flame was just as big and garish as before. Groaning in frustration, she dunked her hands into the water and listened to it sizzle out.

She tried again, conjuring up an orb of heat and trying to make it disappear again by letting thoughts of her friends fill her head. Still her thoughts didn't change the flame at all, and many more times she was forced to dunk her hands in the water to start over.

After what seemed like a very long while, Anna began to see the smallest of changes. The flame would shrink in on itself and shorten a little, or get just the tiniest bit quieter in its sputtering. Although she couldn't get the flame to disappear completely and she still had to plunge her hands into the water every time she wanted to start over, she seemed to be making progress.

"Princess Anna!"

Cursing under her breath, Anna quickly squelched her latest creation and turned. A slim figure was entering the garden, usual placid smile on her face.

Anna sighed, forcing a smile. "Hi, Victoria!"

"What are you doing out in the cold?" Victoria asked innocently.

"Oh…just enjoying the fall color," Anna improvised. She watched suspiciously as the handmaiden strolled lazily around the garden, scanning the ground with her brow furrowed in concentration.

"Um…what are _you_ doing out in the cold?" Anna asked, struggling to keep the annoyance out of her voice. Figured that Victoria had to come for a stroll in the garden while she was hurriedly trying to get her power situation sorted out.

"Oh, I'm picking the queen the last flowers of the season!" she replied cheerily. "I do know she loves them so, and throughout the winter she won't get to see many."

Anna shrugged, turning away. She was fairly sure most of the flowers in the little courtyard had already shriveled up in the growing cold, but somehow it wasn't too surprising that Victoria was going to ridiculous lengths to impress Elsa.

Anna rolled her eyes. _What a little suck-up!_

She quickly mentally scolded herself, sighing. She knew she really shouldn't be making fun of Elsa's sweet-natured handmaiden and the girl who was essentially the queen's best friend, of all people. But sometimes it was a bit difficult not to, what with the way every time Anna turned around, Victoria seemed to be following Elsa around doe-eyed and shamelessly brown-nosing.

None of the other castle servants were quite that…dedicated, that was for sure.

At least it made Victoria good at her job.

Anna leaned back against the willow tree, deciding to call it quits on her power-controlling practice until Victoria went back inside. The brown-haired girl was just about the last person she needed catching an unwelcome glimpse of a bunch of fire flitting around in her hand.

She closed her eyes, letting herself relax. Let Victoria wander around a little while…she was well on her way to controlling whatever odd fire powers she had, and in no time at all she was going to have them completely under wraps. Then neither Victoria nor anyone else would be giving her skeptical looks.

She let out a contented sigh, rather proud of her initiative. _Wow, look at you, going out and taking steps to solve this little snag all by yourself without getting anyone's help! And hey, if Elsa can summon her powers at will and not have them bother her when she doesn't need them, why can't you?_

Then she pictured the arc of spikes around Elsa at the coronation, the people's horrified looks as they stared at the frozen fountain. She imagined the duke's contorting face as he screamed and pointed, slipping on the ice sheets that had exploded from Elsa completely by accident.

Anna cried out aloud, stumbling backward. She heard a familiar swishing and crackling, and opened her eyes to see an enormous pillar of flame protruding from her hand.

Anna yelped again, falling hard on her stomach. She tried desperately to use her other hand to stable herself, but she didn't succeed before the one with the fire brushed against the ground. The flames quickly latched onto the fallen leaves, spreading around the edge of the pond in a red hot arc.

An ear-splitting screech sounded from a few meters away. "WHAT'S GOING ON?" came Victoria's horrified voice. "YOUR MAJESTY, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"

_Shit. Shitshitshitshit._ Anna's stomach tightened, her entire body trembling with panic. _Well, I'll deal with her in a bit._

"N—not now, Victoria!" Anna stammered. She dipped both her arms into the water, gathering up as much water as she could and flinging it out onto the fire. She swished water out as quickly as she could, not even sparing the brunette girl so much as a glance until all of the fire had been snuffed out into damp ash.

She heard the handmaiden's footsteps thundering toward her and hot sweat began to leak from her pores, despite the chilly fall air.

Taking a number of shaky breaths, Anna turned to face her.

"What was _that?_" Victoria demanded. Although her eyes were wide with fear, there was a steely edge to her voice that made Anna wince.

"I was…" Anna hesitated, trying desperately to think of a halfway convincing explanation. "I was…uh…playing around with matches." She gave Victoria a meek smile, trying to look embarrassed. "I see now it wasn't such a good idea."

Anna studied the ground, waiting patiently for Victoria to start yelling at her or scolding her. It wasn't really the servant's place to do so, but Anna imagined anyone was due to get a stern talking-to after fooling around with matches, princess or not.

Instead, Victoria's voice was quiet and cold when it finally came out.

"Where are they?"

"Wait…what?" Anna looked up at her, blinking.

Victoria loomed over her, violet eyes boring into her again. "You said you were playing around with matches, but I don't see any. _Where are they?_"

Anna tried to grin, although it came across as more of a grimace.

"I, ah…I put them away! Oh, and I may have knocked a couple into the pond on accident. I hope the ducks don't eat them!"

"Really." Victoria crossed her arms. "Can I see them, then?"

"See…?"

"Well, you said you put the matches away. So where are they?"

_Shit._ "Oh, uh…" Anna started feeling around her dress, pretending to look for them. "I know they're in here somewhere…"

Victoria's eyes continued to judgmentally scrutinize her. Anna felt a prickle of annoyance, remembering who she was talking to.

"Hey!" She got to her feet and crossed her arms, glaring at the maidservant. "I don't have to tell you _anything._"

Victoria's lip curled in the beginnings of a sneer. "Just makes it all the easier to believe you're lying, then."

Anna bristled. "Well, I don't know where I put them," she huffed. "And it's none of your concern, anyway."

Victoria smirked. "That's funny. Just put them in your dress or whatever less than a minute ago, and now you can't find them?" She leaned in closer, her hot breath starting to mix with Anna's. "I just hope you don't carry those tricky little matches with you everywhere you go."

Anna gawked at her. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Oh…just that I hope you decide to put them away as soon as possible, so they don't cause any more trouble. After all, that would solve this entire issue, right? No more playing with matches."

She smiled innocently, reaching out and putting a hand on Anna's arm. Anna snatched her arm away, glaring at her.

"Well, who cares? I put out the fire, didn't I? It's not gonna happen again!"

Victoria snorted. "Ah yes, but you might have to find the matches in question before they start any more fires."

"Hey!" Anna went back to frantically searching throughout her dress and in her cloak, feeling around for a box that wasn't there.

"Somehow, I don't think you're going to find anything," Victoria said. In response, Anna searched even more adamantly.

"Now, I _do_ wonder what the rest of the castle staff will think about their lovely princess carelessly causing fires," she added nonchalantly, smirking.

_She's going to _tell_?_

Anna's heart sped up twofold, and somewhere in the mass panic that seized her mind, her fear turned to anger.

"_Hey!_" she snarled, storming forward so she could get right up in the maidservant's face. "That's not—you can't just…just…_threaten_ the princess like that! You say one word about this to anyone…" She gestured to the charred crescent by the pond where the fire had been. "…and I'm telling Elsa to fire you."

Victoria curled her lip. "You may be the princess, but she's the queen! You can't tell her what to do."

"Maybe not, but she's very open to my suggestions." Anna crossed her arms. "I'm her sister. _Try me._"

"Oh, really? Because _I_ wouldn't take suggestions from someone who couldn't even find the matches she claimed to use to start an enormous fire mere _seconds_ ago." She finished the statement with a sweet smile. Anna suddenly found it incredibly difficult not to punch her.

Anna's entire body tensed, her fury building up faster than a gathering hurricane. "It might come as a surprise, but you can't just speak to me however you like and give me all your…" She waved her hands wildly. "…all your prying _crap!_ Stop prodding around in things that don't concern you. I don't know who you think you are, but you will _not_ address me in such a disrespectful manner!"

Victoria flinched and backed away, seemingly shocked by Anna's outburst. She gave a hasty curtsy, realizing she had crossed some sort of line.

"I apologize, Your Majesty. You're right, I was far too crass. Please forgive my foolishness. I was simply curious."

_Curious, my ass!_ Anna hated the innocent little smile she gave, as if her undue nagging _hadn't_ nearly cost Anna her secret. But more than anything Anna found she was annoyed at herself, having gotten into such a funk thinking about Elsa's troubles with her powers that she had let her own get out of hand. And in front of the nosiest servant in the castle, of all people.

"It's fine, Victoria," she sighed. "Just don't do it again."

Without another word, she turned and walked off, slipping into the castle door and away from Victoria's ever-prying eyes. She drew her cloak tighter around her shoulders, already feeling guilt beginning to seep into her.

She hated pulling rank on people. She really did. It didn't seem fair at all, holding something over their head that neither they nor Anna could help. But in this case, it seemed to be the only way to get Victoria to leave her alone.

Not like she didn't have reason to be suspicious. If Anna had only thought up a better cover story…

She cursed under her breath. Shooting one last anxious glance at the door to the garden, she continued purposefully down the corridor.

Perhaps, she decided, a trip to the library would clear her head.

* * *

Anna sank gleefully into the velvet armchair, plopping the book down on her lap. It was one of her favorites, a story about a unicorn who was outcast by all the other unicorns because a witch cursed her magic to be weaker and faultier than theirs, but who eventually found comfort and companionship in a band of misfit woodland creatures. Nestling as deep as she could into the plush pillows, she flipped the book open.

_Once upon a time, in a faraway magical land, there lived a herd of the brightest and most beautiful creatures. They made their home in a secluded glade, resting under the cool shade of the trees and feasting on the ripe berries and lush grasses. Among the most peaceful and gentle-natured of the unicorns was a mare named Feather, adored by all her kind and next in line to be the herd's leader._

Anna had read through all of Feather's innocent adventures with her friends and was getting to the part with her altercation with the witch when her mind strayed elsewhere. The mental image of Feather accidentally knocking over the witch's herbs and spilling her brew was slowly replaced with an image of her standing next to a charred wooden pillar, the horrified faces of her subjects staring up at her as she desperately tried to conceal the fire spitting from her palm.

Groaning, Anna turned her attention back to the story. Typical of her brain to wander there when she was trying to calm down.

_Feather pleaded and pleaded, trying to convince the witch that it was a harmless accident, but the witch would not hear of it. Waving her hands wildly about, she whispered words in an ancient language._

_Feather stumbled back, feeling suddenly weak. On the way home, she stopped by the cliffside homes of the mountain goats. She had promised to bring their recently-deceased king back to life. However, when she touched her horn to his chest, he only twitched a few times before falling back into endless sleep._

Anna felt her mind straying again, her eyes wandering away from the paper and choosing instead to focus on an entirely random circle of wall.

_What if Victoria _does_ tell the other servants? _she thought._ What if they all catch on to the fact that it wasn't matches? What if they spread word to the whole kingdom and everyone is scared of me and hates me?_

Anna felt sick to her stomach, starting to tremble at the thought. She gripped the sides of the book harder, her fingers digging almost painfully into the paper.

She took a shaky breath, pleading with her mind to let her be absorbed in the world of Feather and the unicorns instead of constantly ripping her away from it and circling back to the very topic she was trying to distract herself from. Determined to focus, Anna snapped her eyes back to the pages.

She found the pristine white of the margins quickly darkening to a brownish-black, the darkness spreading rapidly from everywhere her fingers were touching the pages. Anna screeched, snatching her hands away from the book and lashing out with her legs until she had managed to kick it off of the chair.

She hunched in panicked silence for several seconds before apprehensively peeking over the edge of the chair, stealing a glance at the book. Although it looked mostly the same as normal, the crumpled edges of the pages she had burned stuck out in a jagged black line.

As she leaned back into the chair, she took a long breath.

_Okay. That's it. I'm telling Elsa._

She had wanted to solve this issue on her own, she really had. The last thing she wanted was to add another thing for the Queen of Arendelle to worry about, on top of her already-long list of responsibilities. Besides, it wasn't as though Anna couldn't do things for herself.

But this…

She stole another frightened look at the book before standing up, hurriedly walking out of the library. She gave the librarian a silent apology for leaving her book out, but her pace didn't slow in the slightest.

Whatever powers she had mysteriously acquired were getting out-of-hand, and Elsa was the only one who could help.

_I'm sorry, Elsa. I really wish I could just sort through this myself…_

She would love to, but she wasn't going to take the chance of failing.

Anna burst into the throne room, hunched over and out of breath. Elsa was sitting tranquilly on her throne, flipping halfheartedly through a history book but looking otherwise unoccupied.

She ran to her sister's throne. The queen looked up, roused by the sound of fast approaching footsteps.

"Anna!" She raised her eyebrows. "What is it?"

Anna grabbed onto the edge of the throne. "I need to talk to you," she hissed.

"You do?" Elsa started to stand up. "What about?"

"Um…" Anna cast an anxious glance at the assembled guards, seeming to track the sisters' every moves. "I'll tell you in a second. It's important," she added.

"All right."

She had almost gotten out of her throne when the far door to the room exploded open. Victoria came racing down the long carpet, running at what had to have been her top speed.

"Your Majesty!" she panted "A messenger told me that he just received a summons for you to meet with a court of royalty in Bordinia. He says it's urgent!"

_Are you kidding me?_ Anna let out an inward scream. Bordinia was a long way off, at least a week's boat trip! And Elsa was being summoned there _now?_

Elsa's expression reflected Anna's own disbelief. "Bordinia? What do they need me _there_ for?"

"From what I was told, one of the southernmost kingdoms is trying to create an empire and invading all manner of kingdoms to do it," Victoria explained. "The monarchs of the northern kingdoms have to meet up as quickly as possible to form an alliance to stop them."

Elsa's shoulders slumped. "Fair enough," she said. "But can you give me a minute? There's something I need to attend to first." She glanced at Anna.

Victoria shook her head rapidly. "Your Majesty, there's no time! The summons said for you to depart _immediately!_"

Elsa let out an irritated sigh. "Are they policing when I leave? I don't think they're going to notice if I depart a little while after I get the message!"

"Well, I checked with the messenger, and the next boat for Bordinia leaves very soon," the maidservant pointed out. "I will help you gather your things quickly so you can depart on that one. It's essential you take it…if you wait for the next ship, you could be waiting half a day!"

Elsa's expression turned from one of annoyance to one of defeat. "Well, they're certainly going to be hearing a word or two from me about giving me such short notice," she grumbled. She turned to Anna, grabbing both her sister's hands in her own.

"Anna, I'm sorry. But you know these diplomatic trips are. I won't be gone for too terribly long, and you can tell me whatever you need to tell me when I get back."

Anna's eyes widened in horror. How was she ever going to control her fire during the indefinite time her sister was gone?

"But…I…"

"Look, if it's really all that urgent, you can tell the head guard," Elsa cut in. "Or Victoria. Or another high-ranked servant. You're not going to be alone here. Or I suppose you could try and tell me while I'm packing my things?"

Anna bit her lip, glancing at Victoria. Like hell she was going to talk about her fire power with _her_ around. She suspected Victoria knew exactly what she was trying to do, and that was why she had so hastily agreed to help Elsa gather her belongings.

_Checkmate_, the handmaiden's purple eyes seemed to say, her mouth curling up into the faintest of smirks.

"No, it's fine," Anna said. "It…might take longer than that. You sure you can't stay a little longer?"

"Well, you heard what she said," Elsa sighed. "It sounds like I have to make that boat."

She reached forward and wrapped Anna in a tight hug.

"I won't be gone for too long," she murmured into Anna's shoulder. Pulling back, she gave Anna an encouraging smile. "Take good care of the kingdom for me while I'm gone, all right?"

"Okay!"

Anna faked a smile, waving at her sister as she rushed out of the room with her lady-in-waiting and all of the throne room guards escorting her. As soon as the door shut she whimpered, collapsing onto the floor in a despondent heap.

No one could help her now.

She leaned up against the side of the throne, letting sobs finally wrack through her body. She pressed her palms to her face, letting her tears run down her hands—her _stupid_, reckless hands which had burned the pages of a library book without cause, which would do who-knows-how-much damage before the one person who might be able to soothe their power returned.

She wiped her nose with the crease of her elbow, giving the back of her hand a disgusted look as she put her arm down. How on earth was she going to keep them from burning anything else?

After every stressed and fearful tear had been dumped from her eyes, she sat on the floor for a long time, staring at her folded hands. And she found the longer she looked, the more an idea began to form.

She waited a while longer before walking out of the throne room, weaving through the castle until she arrived at the same set of blue-and-white doors she had knocked on unsuccessfully for years. She pressed her ear to it, listening for the sound of hushed voices and shuffling clothes and suitcases and finding none of either.

It would seem Victoria and Elsa had already left the castle and gone to the docks.

Anna carefully opened the door and crept inside. To her relief, it was empty.

Closing the doors behind her, Anna slid down onto the floor and opened the bottom drawer of Elsa's bedside dresser. After rummaging through an assortment of other clothing her sister wanted to forget, her eyes finally landed on what she had come in for.

A pair of silken, patterned light blue gloves.

Anna scooped them up, regarding them curiously for a short while before carefully slipping them on.

_I hope Elsa won't mind too terribly if I borrow these._

She regarded her newly-covered hands, entire body sagging in relief. For now, at least, she was content with her makeshift solution.

She only hoped it would suffice to hold everything back until Elsa returned.

* * *

**Tbh it was kind of interesting to think about how Anna might process discovering her fire powers, given that she was directly privy to how Elsa was treated because of hers. I definitely hold it would be a solid mix of OH SHIT OH CRAP OH FUCK PANIC PANIC PANIC and THIS IS FINE EVERYTHING IS FINE I FUCKIN GOT THIS GUYS DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME! Although Anna definitely has some emotional codependency going on (which Frozen 2 actually kind of addressed! Good on you, Frozen 2!), I feel like when it comes to more tangible, non-abstract issues, Anna would kinda have this independence "no I need to solve this all by myself!" complex to prove that just because she grew up sheltered it doesn't mean she's incompetent or useless. That's my headcanon, anyway—and she shows some shades of it in the first movie, what with "I've just been outside my castle for the very first time in my life this afternoon but Imma climb a scary, steep mountain I've never been to before to talk down my superpowered sister, NO DON'T COME WITH ME HANS I GOT THIS!" I mean sure, she enlisted Kristoff's help, but that seemed to be more for practical transportation purposes than actually wanting/needing a buddy to encourage her onwards or help her figure out how to stop the winter—I firmly believe that my girl Anna would have scaled that damn mountain with or without Kristoff, even if it took her like 5 days. And hell, even when she DID get to the ice castle she's like "you sidekick boys stay outside, Imma resolve this shit MYSELF" because that's just the kind of Energy our girl has.**  
**Anyways tl;dr Anna is basically just the "this is fine" dog in a house on fire meme in this chapter. And that's just the biggest Mood—there has been many a time when I encounter a Problem and I convince myself thoroughly "This Thing is no big deal! I can fix this easily!" when, in fact, the Thing is a Big Deal and cannot, in fact, be fixed easily.**  
**(Tbh I tried really hard not to just make Anna a self-insert in this cuz we're honest-to-god so similar but it is often difficult to tell where Princess Anna of Arendelle ends and I begin, so a lot of elements of my personality and the way I respond to conflict in general worked its way into her character, whoops)**  
**Also damn…I hope I didn't make Anna come across as TOO OOC in the part with Victoria. Tbh she seems like the kind of person who might lash out and say some pretty cruel or rude things when anxious or panicking, kind of like how Elsa did at the coronation with the ice spikes. I didn't mean to make Anna look like a snob (hell, she's like…the FURTHEST Disney princess from snobby!) so much as show her kinda impulsively latching on to the one thing she can think of that she has over Victoria that can make good ol Vick leave her alone. I guess I also wanted to show homegirl…not at her best, since I'm trying to make her an actual fleshed-out character with flaws who sometimes make shitty choices. I like to kind of expand on the personality Disney's already given me, which I do in all of my RotBTD fics (although Anna was already pretty fleshed out to begin with, which is why she's my favorite Disney princess! Well done, Disney!).**  
**I was looking at one of those memes on Tumblr that was like "how certain characters feel about saying fuck" and Anna was under "has never said fuck and refuses to" and I'm sorry but that is WRONG Princess Anna of Arendelle would 1000% be the most shameless potty mouth of all time if she wasn't in a Disney movie and absolutely no one can change my mind. Like homegirl is the sort of person who would stub her toe and then just rain down a list of every curse word she has ever learned in her entire life. And hey, since I don't have to make this fanfic family-friendly in the least, get ready for potty-mouth Anna swearing up a storm every time something goes slightly wrong XD**  
**It was kinda fun to brainstorm what kind of story might end up being Anna's favorite, or what might really resonate with her. I figured with her, ah…inferiority complex of sorts and feelings of inadequacy (kinda discussed in the deleted Frozen song "More Than Just A Spare"), she'd probably relate a lot to a character from an important position who a lot is expected of whose abilities are seen as lesser than everyone else's around her, in some way, and has to find a community that accepts her for that. Aaaaand it's unicorns and woodland creatures because a) Anna lowkey loves animals (I'm a bit salty that Disney gave Elsa the "animal affinity" in Frozen 2 when ANNA was the one who held ducklings, gave Hans' horse pats, AND bonded with Sven in the first movie! Like c'mon! Granted, Bruni and the Nokk are technically spirits and not animals, but sTILL) and b) I'm just a sucker for high fantasy with animal characters, sue me.**  
**Lmao so I didn't realize it until a good ways into writing the story, but I TOTALLY headcanon Anna as having ADHD and it 100% worked its way into how I wrote her in this story without me even realizing XD I mean, it would explain a lot…why she rambles, how she usually has the attention span of a squirrel except when she hyperfocuses (i.e. going to get Elsa on that mountain), why she's so high-energy but said energy seems to be kinda directionless, why she has a bit of a lag in verbal processing (i.e. the "Wait…what?" verbal tic could be this), etc. ALSO why she's seen as ditzy and airheaded because she's clumsy, high-energy, and sometimes slow or forgetful—lots of women with ADHD have this exact problem! We're not dumb, I promise, we just sometimes have trouble slowing down our brains long enough to think through things and keeping from feeling ALL the emotions at frikken' full-ass intensity.**  
**OhoHO, what is this contrived plot coincidence where Elsa has to go out of town JUST as Anna is about to confess to her fire power troubles, which would probably be a severe enough issue to make Elsa go "yeah screw Bordinia's issues with the southern kingdoms, this is more important" and stay in Arendelle? Well, fear not, this is not just bad writing! There's a veeeeeery good reason for it, I promise.**


	4. Chapter 3 - Culmination

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

The stables, Anna reckoned, were a short walk from the castle and miles and miles away from the massive stress hurricane that had become her life inside of it.

As if the fire issues hadn't given her enough to worry about, having all of Elsa's queenly duties dumped ungracefully onto her over the last couple days had only made her into more of a nervous wreck. At the very least, her idea of allowing Elsa's gloves had allowed her to fill out paperwork instead of setting it on fire.

Although the heat that frequently ate at the palm of her hands hinted that a pair of silk gloves wouldn't always be able to keep everything in.

Despite the powers not acting up in any noticeable way, Anna was still constantly afraid they would. Add that to trying to do her sister's job without screwing up and fooling neighboring kingdoms into thinking she was declaring war with her bad handwriting, Anna was more or less screaming internally all day long.

Somewhere in between the constant foreign paperwork flowing in or the court asking about approving this law and that law, Anna had gotten a bit of downtime. She had decided that there would be no better form of relaxation than a nice horseback ride around the kingdoms, perhaps going up into the mountains a bit if she was feeling adventurous. She had even brought along a money pouch in one of her royal dress's state-of-the-art pockets, just in case she happened upon something especially tantalizing in the marketplace on the way through town.

She desperately needed a break, and she was determined to make the absolute most of even what tiny excuse for one she had been given.

Anna was almost out of the castle's front door when she felt a steely grip on her arm. The hand spun her around, and she felt her heart sink.

She had never, for one second of the last few days, stopped resenting the fact that Elsa had not taken her prodding lady-in-waiting with her. Anna had quite wished she would, but Elsa had insisted Victoria stay behind. She was familiar with the position of queen, her sister claimed, and could help Anna out with her temporary duties.

Well, sure, if "help" came along with never-ending scrutiny. The brunette spent all day looking Anna up and down when she thought she couldn't see, almost as though waiting for her to make some horrible mistake and set the throne room ablaze.

"Where exactly are you going, Your Highness?" Victoria's eyes were like ice over a frozen lake.

"Just out horseback riding!" Anna replied cheerily. No cause to be nervous when she was doing nothing wrong, she figured. What could Victoria possibly rag on her for this time? "I had some free time in my schedule," she added meaningfully.

"I see." Victoria narrowed her eyes. "Well, I _do_ hope you decided to leave your matches in your room this time. Or anything _else_ that might spook those paranoid things, for that matter."

Anna bristled. "Will you just let that go?" she snapped. "I was being careless the _one_ time! Nothing's happened since, has it?"

"No, I suppose not." Victoria crossed her arms. "And mind you, I'd keep it that way, especially while you have an entire kingdom under your care." She gave Anna one of the saccharine smiles that the princess had come to hate so much.

Anna would have liked to have her fist make contact with the lady-in-waiting's face, but she decided to let the comment slide.

"I'm leaving the matches," she said through clenched teeth. "I don't know what you think you're talking about, but _nothing's going to happen_. Not ever again."

"If you say so." Victoria's voice grew quiet and submissive, but it still had a sardonic edge. Her grip on the princess had loosened, but not quite enough for Anna to slip out of it and book it for the door.

"You've taken to wearing gloves," the handmaiden observed mildly.

Although Anna was massively relieved Victoria had changed the subject, she was wondering what it would take to get out of this nerve-wracking conversation altogether.

"Yeah!" Anna gave her most convincing smile. "I think they make me look a bit more regal, you know?"

"That color doesn't particularly go with your dress."

Anna looked down, realizing that as much as she was loathe to admit it, the maidservant had a point. The bright blue of the gloves _did_ sort of clash with the light green of her dress.

Not that the comment was very welcome coming from Victoria.

"Oh, well…these were the only ones I could find," she managed.

"I don't think you need gloves, Your Majesty," Victoria said, smiling sweetly. "You look plenty beautiful and regal without them."

Anna looked at her in puzzlement, trying to figure out if she was trying to make amends for giving her such a hard time about the fire. It didn't seem particularly likely. Nevertheless, Anna wasn't going to complain if Victoria decided it no longer tickled her fancy to pry and make vaguely rude comments.

"Uh…" Anna's cheeks grew red. "Well, um, thanks, I guess, but I really do like wearing them. Makes me feel more sophisticated."

"Well…" Victoria's face softened. "At least take them off while you're riding. It's bumpy, you know…it'd be all too easy for them to slip off and get trampled."

Anna blinked, surprised at the genuine-sounding concern in Victoria's voice.

"I'll…I'll keep that in mind," she stammered out. "But uh…hey, could you maybe let me go? It's just that I want to get in as much riding as possible, and I have to get back to my duties at like 6…"

"Oh, no, of course." Victoria's hand slid off of Anna's wrist, and the maidservant quickly backed away. "Don't let me hold you up, Your Highness."

Anna waved hastily before barreling out the door, letting out a long breath.

As she made her way across the bridge and into the kingdom, she wondered briefly if she had misjudged Victoria. She was, most of the time, a very nice girl, if perhaps nosier than Anna would have liked. And, as Anna had reasoned many times, she had every reason to be suspicious.

_I just wish she wouldn't _pursue_ those reasons…_

It would make Anna's life much easier if Victoria didn't, anyway.

Although there was a stable at the castle, Anna preferred to keep Kjekk in one of the public stables so he could socialize with the other horses. Besides, he was quite the expert at undoing locks, and if Anna was completely honest, she'd rather the stable boy deal with that sort of thing than herself.

As she walked, she glanced down at her gloves and let out a derisive snort. Fall off and get trampled indeed! How in the hell were they supposed to fall off if she was holding onto the reigns?

Anna bit her lip. Well, if by some chance it _did_ happen…

She pulled off the gloves, shoving them ungracefully into her bra. What was she going to get anxious or stressed about this afternoon, anyway? This was her time to relax.

_I'll just think about Elsa and Sven and Olaf and Kristoff the whole time and everything will be perfectly fine!_

When she got to the stables, she found the stable boy leaning casually up against the wall, one hand in his pocket and the other lighting his pipe.

Upon seeing her, he gave her a missing-toothed grin.

"'Ey, it's tha princess!" he piped in his thick cockney accent. "'Ow can I help you today, mum?"

"Just came to get my horse!" Anna said cheerfully. "I want to go out riding. Nice day for it, isn't it?"

He followed her gaze up to the clear blue afternoon sky and then down again.

"Ah, 'ere to get your 'orse. Should o' known." He smirked to himself, in more of a knowing way than a teasing way. Anna gave him a puzzled look, but quickly shrugged it off.

It was probably nothing. With how on-edge she'd been these last few days, she wouldn't put it past herself to overanalyze peoples' facial expressions.

"Yeah, just want to ride around the kingdom for a bit," she replied, walking over closer to the stable boy. "Maybe up into the mountains a little ways."

"Well, all righ'." When he turned to look at her, he was still smirking. "Jus' hold onto that there stallion _real_ tigh'. If 'e gets away from yah, 'e could get 'imself ea'en up!"

_Wait…what?_

Now _that_ was a bizarre thing to say. No overanalyzing this time.

"Um…what are you talking about?" Anna asked slowly.

The stable boy's eyes widened. "You mean you don't know about the dragon, mum?"

She had to stop herself from letting out a yelp. "What dragon?"

Dragons weren't supposed to be found until much farther north…what was one doing down in Arendelle?

"Big, black creature, flying all over the woods, mum. 'T's only a ma'er of time before he figures out there's no' much to ea' in there. And then…" His lips curved up into a devilish grin. "Then 'e's gonna start coming af'er our livestock. 'E's already taken a few sheep up on the moun'ain, I've heard. A few other odds and ends, too. Quite a nuisance."

"He…he has?" Anna's body began to tense.

"Well, thass what the word is, anyway. I was 'oping your sister would send some knights out to take care of the bluidy thing, but then she 'ad to go getting called away on business."

She shook her head rapidly. "I don't…I don't think she had any idea this was going on. Neither did I."

"Well, 'igh time yah did!" the stable boy said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. "The kingdom's been getting awful worried about i'."

Anna's breathing quickened, fear starting to eat away at her. "The dragon hasn't…he hasn't hurt any of the citizens, has he? Or set anything on fire?"

"Well, no," the boy admitted. "'E 'asn't left the forest much. But I doub' 'e's 'ere to make friends. Yah know what a ravaging appetite those bluidy things 'ave."

Anna scrutinized him anxiously, blinking in worry. If the dragon had apparently been around for a bit, how had word not reached the castle yet? It seemed like pretty big news, especially for a relatively quiet, uneventful kingdom like Arendelle.

Well, perhaps her subjects didn't want to worry her and Elsa with it unless it got really bad, figuring the rulers had more pressing concerns. That in of itself was probably a good sign, if the newly-arrived dragon had apparently not even stirred up enough trouble yet to justify sending an informant to the queen or princess.

But nonetheless, what else had been going on with this dragon that she and her sister didn't know about?

She let out a shaky breath, feeling her heartbeat quicken.

The stable boy reached behind him and patted the wood of the building. "I'm telling yah, when 'e _does_ venture out of 'is li'le hidey hole, these hef'y buggers are gonna be the firs' to go. I just 'ope no one's riding one when 'e decides i's time for a snack. And if I'm being 'onest with yah…" He leaned in close to Anna, so that his pungent breath was condensing directly on her face. "If that bluidy dragon _does_ decide to wreak havoc on the kingdom, I'm not sure there's much any of us—even the knights—can do to stop 'im."

Panic abruptly tore through Anna like a rampaging flood. She stumbled backwards, pressing her hands up against the building to stable herself and feeling her palms grow red-hot.

Before she had time to process that she no longer had her gloves on, an enormous jet of fire ripped from either palm with such force that they propelled her sharply away from the building. The hand jets dissolved as quickly as they had come, but as Anna turned around, she realized that it was not before some of the flames they had spewed had latched themselves onto the stable wall.

Anna stood frozen in shock. The next few seconds didn't feel real, the fire seeming to spread across the walls in slow motion. It was as if she was trapped in some eerie dream, watching as the flames began to eat up the building with menacing, surreal precision, sending tendril after tendril of smoke into the clear blue sky.

"Fire!" The stable boy's screams seemed muffled in her daze. "_Fire!_"

_The horses!_

The blaring thought finally snapped her out of her trance. She raced for the stable doors, eyes wide and frantic.

Remembering the incident with the oven, Anna suddenly became sure of one thing. The fire couldn't hurt her.

And even if it could…was she going to just stand there and let Kjekk and all the other horses choke on smoke and burn to a husk, living the rest of their lives out in unspeakable terror?

She thought not.

Anna flung the doors to the stable open, face falling in dismay as she saw that something was blocking her way to the horses' stalls. Several enormous, flaming bundles of hay had toppled over, barricading the door.

Behind it she heard a loud whinnying, and recognized the block-patterned black-and-white mane of Kjekk through the gaps in the hay. Despite the situation, Anna couldn't help but snicker a little. Figures her crafty horse would be the first one to figure out how to undo his lock in a fire.

Grunting in determination, she picked up the nearest bundle of hay and flung it off to the side. She braced herself for searing pain wherever the flames touched her, but they were no hotter against her skin than rays of summer sunshine—just the slightest bit warmer than was comfortable.

_So I guess I was right_.

Anna weakened with relief. That certainly would make things easier.

She continued to pick up armfuls of hay and toss them out of the way, breaking down the barricade as quickly as she could. "Hold on Kjekk, I'll get you out of there!"

As soon as she had cleared a big enough space, her horse came barreling out, nearly crushing her in the process. She watched as he sped off into the distance and knew he would be nigh impossible to find and get a hold of, but found that she hardly cared as long as he was safe.

Shoving a few more bales of hay to the side as she went, she ran through the open space. Her whole body was sweaty and overheated and her clothes were getting thoroughly singed, but other than that she was not too worse for wear.

Anna stumbled from stall to stall, hastily undoing the locks and pressing herself up against the next stall as each horse stampeded out. Smoke was starting to drift down from the ceiling, stinging her eyes and clouding her vision, but she'd be damned if she left before every single horse was freed.

To her horror, the fire had even started to spread to the wooden walls between the horses' pens. Although the creatures were bucking and neighing and running around in a crazed panic, none of them were getting close enough to get singed.

At least, not yet.

Anna sped up her rescue, trying not to focus on the burning in her lungs or the heaving coughs that exploded from her every few seconds.

Once the last horse had been let out, Anna hurriedly squirmed back out between the burning hay bundles and into the cool fall air. She took an enormous smoke-free breath of it, letting herself slacken in relief.

Most of the horses had run off, probably racing around the kingdom in a panicked frenzy until they realized they were well out of harm's way. A few had walked a safe distance away from the burning building but not gone any further. The poor creatures were pacing back and forth, seemingly completely unsure of what to do with their usual place of residence slowly burning into a useless black husk.

Unfortunately, it appeared that the unsure horses were not the only ones who had gathered outside the burning stable.

The flaming building had attracted quite a crowd. All manner of kingdom citizens were gathered in a messy semicircle around it, watching the licking orange tongues with a mixture of awe and horror. A few were dumping buckets of water on it, trying in vain to put the fire out, but most were huddling nervously together, exchanging frightened murmurs. The air was occasionally pierced by the scream of an alarmed citizen seeing the fire for the first time.

And standing at the front of the crowd, her violet eyes cold, was Victoria.

Anna's entire body tried to shrink into itself.

"Victoria," she whimpered, her voice barely audible. "How did you—"

"I followed you," Victoria said coldly. "Did you really think I'd trust someone as dangerous as you to just go wandering about the kingdom all by herself?"

Louder anxious murmurs rippled through the crowd, still inaudible save for the word "dangerous," repeated over and over.

"That's right." Victoria's voice grew loud and shrill. She raised her finger to point at Anna. "_She_ did this! This is _her_ fault!"

Gasps and disbelieving whispers sounded throughout the gathered mass. "The princess did it?" someone called out.

"How?" came another voice.

To Anna's dismay, the stable boy stepped out of the crowd and went to stand beside Victoria.

"She's righ'!" he called out. "I was just chattin' with the princess a minute ago when she jus' sho' some fire ou' of her hands, and the whole bluidy thing caught on fire!"

"How is that possible?" demanded a man close to the front.

"Witchcraft," a woman hissed loudly somewhere. "Look at her. She came out of there completely unscathed!"

Dozens of pairs of frightened eyes stared at Anna, as if expecting her to flick her hands and send an enormous wall of fire descending on all of them.

"Yes!" Victoria screamed. "She destroyed our stables with her devil's magic! Who's to say one of _your_ homes isn't next?" Her eyes scanned the crowd, demanding an answer. "While you're _asleep?_" Although a few looked uncertain, none of them seemed to be able to come up with a retort.

"No, no, you don't understand!" Anna shook her head emphatically. "I didn't mean t—"

An enormous fireball exploded from her palm and streaked toward the crowd. Letting out startled gasps, they leaped to the side, hurriedly making a path for it.

Once it reached the far side of the crowd, the fireball fizzed out into nothing. However, Anna could see from all the faces slowly starting to scowl in disgust that the damage had been done.

"Your princess…" Victoria paused, lips curling into a sneer. "Could _kill_ you! She could kill _all_ of you, with just one flick of her wrist."

"No, I wouldn't!" Anna wailed. "Please, it was an accident!"

"Ah, yes." Victoria began to make her way toward Anna, her gaze threatening. "Funny how accidents can still completely destroy things."

The handmaiden turned to the crowd. "Look at her, 'mistakenly' burning your building down and nearly killing your horses," she spat. "Her hellfire is an uncontrollable menace! Do you really want an unpredictable, destructive _witch_ on your throne?"

"No, no!" Anna looked at the crowd pleadingly. "I can learn to control it, I'll never—"

"Never let it happen again?" Victoria cut her off, shooting her a jeer. "This girl's a grenade," she snarled. "Do you really want to stand around and wait for her to go off? She'll make the whole kingdom burn to the ground!"

"No, I won't!" Anna protested.

"Oh, sure you will," Victoria hissed, leaning in so that her face was only a hair away from Anna's. "You just _won't mean to._"

She turned back to the crowd, who were slowly starting advance on the red-haired princess.

"You know what could happen while she's learning to get a handle on it?" Victoria roared. "She'll burn up another building. And then another. And another. And then the castle where your mighty queen lives. And then everything else. And if this kingdom burns…" she paused, her face contorting with emphasis. "_You burn with it!_"

Terrified silence spread over the gathered people. Anna swallowed, stepping away from Victoria.

"So what do we do?" came a man's quiet voice.

Victoria's lips slowly curved up into a sinister smile.

"We rid the kingdom of her, before she destroys us all."

Anna's stomach twisted as she picked up on Victoria's meaning. A hefty group of people emerged from the crowd, dispersing and spreading around every side of the stables.

She narrowed her eyes in puzzlement, trying to figure out why they were shuffling around in the surrounding hay. When they began to pull out rakes and pitchforks, their meaning became clear.

"Get her," Victoria spat.

It was then that Anna did what she had an inkling that she should have done a while ago. She ran.I

* * *

**f it isn't already obvious from this chapter, I have *MAJOR SPOILERS FOR FROZEN 2*…VERY mixed feelings about Anna becoming queen. On the one hand, I think it's awesome that she finally gets to be kinda definitively important in her own rite and no longer overshadowed by her sister just by means of her sister being the queen and not her. And she definitely feels like just the unnecessary "extra," if "More than Just a Spare" is anything to go off of. BUT THAT SAID I genuinely think our girl would haaaaaate the day-to-day drudgeries and stresses of being the queen, and just…the MASSIVE attention to boring details and complicated, brain-numbing political intricacies she'd have to make herself care about in order to be a good queen. Not to mention she'd probably be expected to maintain a more reserved and regal persona and keep her high-energy goofball tendencies in check, which, somewhat speaking from experience, would probably just make her feel more restless and annoyed than anything. Like hell, as a fellow ADHD-sufferer, one of the very worst things about getting older and having more responsibilities thrust onto you in general is being expected to express your emotions less to seem more "mature" (which, remember, is REALLY hard for us adhd gremlins because we feel shit SUPER strongly and often can't filter it very well lmao) and having to have this kinda emotionless, energy-devoid persona in a lot of more high-end jobs. Tbh I think Anna would like the IDEA of being queen more than actually BEING queen and being stressed out 24/7 for being the main caretaker of an entire COUNTRY and having to deal with all the political minutia that would probably bore the poor woman to tears. So like…I both like and don't like Anna being canonically queen. But the first part of this chapter is my interpretation of how she would realistically take it…at first, at least lol**  
**Also Anna's horse Kjekk being notoriously good at undoing locks and escaping the stables is 100% CANON I did ALL my Frozen research thank you very much**  
**(Listen I take my fanfic very seriously, I may or may not have scoured all the Frozen supplementary material for content to use in this)**  
**I really have no idea why I decided to make the stable boy a random cockney farmboy. T just felt…right for some reason? That, and I like to, if possible, come up with at least mildly interesting minor characters who aren't like…painfully bland XD**  
**Also, I'm sorry, but if you DON'T think Princess Anna of Arendelle, a fiery impulsive animal lover who shamelessly picks up ducklings and gives random horses nose pats, would run headfirst into a burning stable that may or may not burn her alive as well to save a bunch of horses from certain death, you're just wrong. Her dumb, wholesome ass would literally not even give it a second thought, and I refuse to believe anything else.**  
**And Kjekk and Anna have a BOND okay, our gorl loves her horsey friend and patiently puts up with his escapist shenanigans and rants to him about her sister being all secretive and mysterious about the snow powers…and also not having sand powers XD**  
**Also to my very astute reviewer warlocktongue who predicted something's up with Victoria YOU WERE ABSOLUTELY FUCKIN RIGHT, MY GUY and it delighted me beyond measure that you were able to pick up on my hints that she's actually a shady motherfucker pretending to be all pure and innocent :D Makes me feel like I'm not doing half bad at this foreshadowing/hinting at later big reveals thing!**  
**ALSO HICCUP WILL BE ALONG VERY VERY SOON I PROMISE**  
**Until next time, friendos!**


	5. Chapter 4 - Encounter

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

The screams of the mob behind her were faint, but Anna didn't dare to slow down. Although she had a slight head start on Victoria and her band of psychos, there was no telling how long it would last.

She weaved in and out of streets and up steep hills, trying to map a path that the mob couldn't follow. But it seemed like no matter how elusive she tried to be, the shrieks behind her never got any quieter.

She flipped around another corner and went down another back alley before stopping in her tracks, catching her breath.

In front of her, across a small stretch of grass, stood the edge of the kingdom and the beginning of the woods.

Anna anxiously fingered a strand of her hair. This was the one place that the mob perhaps wouldn't follow her.

But it was also the _woods_…

Well, no matter. What choice did she really have?

Without a second thought, Anna tore across the grass and into the dark trees.

She had hoped that the mob's screams behind her would die away as she raced in between the towering pines and bright birch trees, but she had no such luck. The consistent sound of it after a long while of making her way through the forest informed her that they had indeed followed her in.

And judging by her aching legs and burning sides, she wasn't going to be able to keep going much longer.

Anna was on the verge of collapse when she saw the most peculiar thing standing under an especially bulky birch tree ahead of her.

It almost looked like…a person?

She stumbled toward the figure, gasping for breath. The closer she got, the more she had to blink to assure herself that she wasn't hallucinating from lack of oxygen.

It _was_ a person standing under the tree. A boy, with a mop of brown hair and a rounded nose and what looked like several dark patches on his skin. His expression changed to a mixture of confusion and fear as soon as he saw her.

Anna had to admit that she was very confused herself. What was some strange boy doing just standing around in the forest?

Well, whatever he was doing in the woods, Anna ventured a guess that he had been there a long while. His green clothes were torn and ragged, and his fur jacket and boots were tangled and worn.

Perhaps it would have been wiser to just keep going, to not stop and talk to him. But Anna had to admit to herself that she couldn't keep running for much longer. It was only a matter of time before Victoria caught up to her with her sharpened pitchfork...

Anna shuddered at the thought.

She ground to a halt in front of the strange boy, hunching over in exhaustion.

"Please…" she managed to choke out. "Help me…they're gonna kill me…"

The boy let out what sounded like a resigned sigh and unexpectedly looped his arms around her waist. She tensed up, too surprised at the gesture to protest.

Nothing in the entire world could have prepared her for what happened next. There was a loud cracking noise in his back, and two enormous wings shot out. It would have been jarring enough if they were feathery white angel wings, but they were far from it—black and veined and jagged and scaly and looking to be right off one of the menacing gargoyles that guarded the castle cathedral.

So Anna did the only natural thing and started screaming bloody murder.

The winged boy seemed to ignore this, aside from giving her a very dirty look. He tightened his grip around her waist and started flapping his massive black wings, quickly lifting them both into the air. He flew up to one of the birch tree's thicker branches, carefully placing Anna before joining her himself.

As soon as he sat down, he slapped his hand over her mouth.

"Shhhhhh_hhhhh!_" he hissed. "Do you want everyone and their mother to know we're up here?!"

Anna's screaming ceased as it dawned on her that he had a very solid point.

Not that whatever the mob was planning on doing to her was necessarily any worse than whatever this flying demon boy was planning with her.

But as the angry screeching of the mob drew ever closer, Anna decided it was just as well that she had taken her chances.

Besides, aside from the creepy black wings, he looked innocent enough. His scowl melted away as soon as the screaming stopped, giving way to a more concerned expression as he carefully took his hand off of her mouth. He had a rather cute dotting of freckles across his cheeks and nose, and his big eyes were a rather pretty shade of green.

It reminded Anna of something, but she couldn't put her finger on what.

She leaned up against the trunk of the tree, tensing as the shouts and footsteps drew closer. She tried to quiet her rapid, panicked breathing, her heart starting to pound so loudly she wondered if her winged companion could hear it.

The boy turned his head and looked away, seeming to switch between focusing intently on all manner of things that weren't her face. Anna found herself doing the same thing, her cheeks growing hot.

She was vaguely aware of how awkward the tense silence hanging in the tree would be if she wasn't so terrified of what was happening down below.

At last, the shouts became close enough for her to make out individual voices.

"I heard the screams coming from over here!"

"Oh yeah, that was her all right. Hysterical little bitch."

"What d'you think she was screeching for, anyway?"

"I dunno. Afraid of the 'big scawy fowest' and forgot she was being chased?"

"Wouldn't put it past her to be that stupid." Several laughs.

Although Anna would usually bristle at such a comment, she was too petrified with fear to feel much of anything else.

"Did you hear she almost married a prince on the first night she met him?"

"Right! She doesn't have a lick of common sense."

The boy dragged his gaze away from a piece of bark that he had been intensely staring at to raise a questioning eyebrow at her. She glowered at him in response.

"I'll bet she stepped on a thorn and her sheltered ass was acting as if her leg had just been chopped off."

"Or maybe she tripped and tore her expensive dress!" More laughs.

"Where is she?" Anna yanked uneasily on a loose strand of hair. Victoria's voice. "I know I heard her right over here! So where'd she go?"

"Oh, relax. Did you hear that infernal screeching? She probably got dragged off by a bear or something. She's done for."

"Bears are hibernating this time of year, you stupid sod!"

"He's right. And I think we'd see a bit of blood." Victoria's voice again, a contemptuous hiss. "And signs of a struggle. Clearly, there isn't either, so she's still out there somewhere. I know it."

"You think she's still on the move?"

"Why did she scream over here, then?"

"I don't know why she screamed!" Victoria snapped. "It's like one of you said, she probably trod on a thistle or something. She's still on the move, and _we're going to find her_. So get going, all of you!"

"But _how_ are we going to find her?" someone whined. "This forest is enormous! How do we know which way she went?"

"I can't even hear her footsteps anymore," another person added.

"In the time we've taken to stop, she's gotten a huge lead. What's the point?"

"I'll tell you what the point is!" Victoria snarled. "If we don't kill her, this witch is going to come back to the kingdom and _everything_ you think you love is going to go down in flames! And who knows what she's going to do while she's sitting on her sister's throne? No." The handmaiden's voice hardened. "She's far too dangerous for us to let her go prancing away into hiding unscathed."

"Oh, would you let it go, Victoria? She's been raised in a castle. She doesn't know the first thing about surviving in the woods!"

"We leave her out here and she's as good as dead. If the wolves don't eat her up, that big black dragon will."

"And it's not as if we won't be ready in case she decides to show her face in Arendelle again."

Victoria let out a frustrated groan. "All right, fine. We'll leave her. I suppose I'd rather not be running around in the woods all damn day anyway. But if the bitch comes back…" She paused. "It'll be the last thing she ever does."

"What about when her sister gets back?"

"I'm not worrying about that right now!" Victoria snapped.

The footsteps of the group gradually receded away until the forest became eerily quiet, the only sounds being the soft breathing of the two people in the tree and the calls of a few select birds who had not flown south for winter yet.

"Hey, um…" Anna studied the tree trunk below her, face growing hot. "Thanks."

"No problem." She looked up to see the boy giving her a wry smile. "I can kind of relate to the whole…being-chased-by-an-angry-mob deal."

She stole a dubious look at his wings. "So…can I go ahead and start with the questions now, or…?"

"Oh, please, go ahead." He sat back, waving a hand dismissively. "Although I have just a few of my own."

"Is it all right if I go first?" she asked.

He shrugged, smirking a little. "It looks like you've been having a _much_ worse day than me, so yes, I think that'd only be fair."

"Okay." _I'll start with a simple one. _"Who are you? And what are you doing just standing around in the for…"

She trailed off as she noticed the peeved look he was giving her. "You know, this would be _much_ easier for me if you just asked one question at a time," he pointed out dryly.

"Oh! Right! Sorry." Anna's face reddened in embarrassment. "Anyway, who are you?"

"Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the third," he said, his tone bored. Upon seeing her perplexed look, he quickly kept going. "Yeah, wonderful name, I know, but back where I'm from—"

Anna shook her head. "No, no, it's not that," she assured him quickly.

_Hiccup…Hiccup…why does that name sound so familiar?_

Now it was the boy's turn to look confused. "What is it, then?" he asked slowly.

"It's just…"

Anna furrowed her brow in concentration, racking her mind for any place she might have heard the unusual name before.

At last her thoughts stumbled across a distant memory. Eyes widening, she slapped her hands on the tree branch triumphantly.

"Wait! I know you!" she burst out. "Your dad brought you to Arendelle when we were kids, and I met you. Do you remember that?"

He narrowed his eyes, scrutinizing her from head to toe in an attempt to recognize her. She fingered a strand of hair, wondering if he even would after so long.

"…Anna?" he said finally.

"Yes! Hi!" She beamed. "Small world, right?"

"Yeah, no kidding." He gave her a small smile. "Fancy stumbling into you again."

"How weird!" She let out a nervous laugh.

"Yeah, you played with me for a while, didn't you?" Hiccup remembered. "And I told you about Berk and the dragons. And then you had that sister—the snow-powered one. What was her name? Eloise? Elisa?"

"Elsa," she corrected.

"Right! Elsa!" He smiled softly at her. "Yeah, that was a good time."

"Well, uh…" Anna blushed slightly. "It's really nice to see you again!"

His eyes flashed with something like brief sadness before his easy smile returned. "I'm glad you think so," he replied. "It's nice to see you too! You've gotten a bit taller," he added sardonically.

"So have you," Anna replied with a grin. "But…what are you doing _here?_ And what's with the…with the…" She pointed wildly at the massive black wings.

"Ah, ah, ah." He reached out a hand and pushed her pointing finger down. "It's my turn, remember?"

"Oh. Right." She huffed a little in disappointment, but didn't protest any further.

Hiccup regarded her curiously. "So…why do you have an angry mob after you?"

Anna sighed. "I figured you'd ask that." She considered lying, but didn't much see the point in it. She didn't know how long she was going to be in this tree with him, but if it was any significant length of time, it wouldn't be long before the truth came out.

Besides, what was the alternative? Lie and say they were driving her out for her nasty politics? That might well make her look even worse.

And if she was honest, there was some strange part of her that really, really wanted to trust him.

"They're after me because of this."

Carefully, Anna waved her hands around one another in the same fluid motion she had been practicing. A fireball appeared between them, and she cupped her hands together so it could spread up into a flame.

"_Waugh!_" Hiccup jumped, his expression turning to one of horror. He scooted back so forcefully that he almost fell out of the tree.

"Hey!" Anna glared at him. "You're one to talk!" She gestured sharply at his enormous pair of wings.

His lips curved up into a meek smile. "Touché."

"Anyway…" Anna's eyes strayed back down to the fire coming from her palms. "That one who was leading the mob—that Victoria—she saw me using this and flipped out and turned that huge group of people against me. Said I was dangerous and all that."

She expected him to cower, perhaps scoot even farther away to get away from her, but instead he looked at her with an expression of intense sympathy. She blinked, pleasantly surprised.

Still, she wouldn't blame him if he decided he had bit off more than he could chew with this fire-spitting girl and flew her out of the tree before hastily going his own way.

And she would be completely alone.

Remembering her gloves, Anna yanked them out of her bra and shoved them on.

"But I won't be dangerous anymore," she added quickly. "Well…not for now, anyway. I mean, it could act up later and all, but for the time being, I think you're okay. I mean, it only really acted up earlier because I got all panicked but I'm not panicked anymore so you should be fine and stuff. And, uh, in any case…" She glanced down at her gloves. "These things suppress it and keep it from bursting out and burning random people and whatnot. But I wasn't wearing them earlier, which is why Victoria saw the fire and freaked, and…all that."

She shut her mouth and looked away, realizing she was rambling.

"Wait." She turned back to see Hiccup giving her a disbelieving look. "So you mean…you're not scared right now? Of…?" He didn't finish, but Anna knew what he meant.

"No." She raised an eyebrow. "I tackled you and buried you in the snow when we were little. You're not _scary._"

He stared at her with something like awe, as if that was something he could never have imagined hearing.

"However," she added, squirming slightly under his intense gaze, "I wouldn't mind an explanation for _those_." She pointed again at the two black wings. "And it's my turn to ask a question, if I remember correctly."

"Okay," he said, his expression turning more neutral.

"So…explain…?" She wiggled her finger insistently.

He let out a long sigh. "Okay, well…you remember about the dragons, right?"

"Sure."

"Well…they were raiding my village a few years back, and I was, you know, supposed to hide and let the dragon-fighters take care of it. But, of course, Hiccup Haddock, the biggest wannabe dragon slayer in all of Berk, wasn't about to pass up an opportunity to be badass."

He rolled his eyes. "So, of course, I grab a sword and charge one of the dragons head-on. So we have this kid with no experience running up to a very angry dragon, and one thing led to another—I slashed him, he put his teeth in my shoulder. I barely managed to get him off of me, mind you."

"And then what happened?" Anna asked softly.

Hiccup scoffed. "Well, the whole thing was this big bloody mess, and I just barely managed to get away, albeit with a huge dragon bite on my shoulder. And after that raid, I started…changing." He bit his lip. "Weird things started to happen to me. Like I was able to grow wings. And I got these." He gestured to the dark patches on his skin which, on closer inspection, Anna realized were patches of scales.

"So…" Anna's eyes widened as she began to get his meaning. "Are you like…half dragon and half human now? Because of the dragon bite?"

He shrugged, smiling timidly. "It's…a bit more complicated than that, but that's one way to phrase it, yes."

He didn't seem interested in elaborating.

"Okay, my turn," he said. "So where are your parents and your snow sister, and why aren't they getting that mob thrown in jail for you? I mean, they can't just be okay with a bunch of people chasing you around with pitchforks, no matter _what_ kind of powers you have."

"Actually…" Anna twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "My parents died. A long time ago. My sister's the queen now, but she's off on some diplomatic business. So until she comes back…" She bit her lip. "I'm on my own."

"Oh." Hiccup's eyes shone with sympathy. "I'm so sorry."

"Yeah, well." Anna looked away uncomfortably. She wasn't interested in discussing her dead parents, preferring to leave them solidly in the past.

"I don't really like to think about it," she admitted. "But in any case…Elsa can't do anything about the mob. I've got another question for you, though."

Hiccup shrugged. "Okay, shoot."

"What are you doing all the way down in Arendelle? And out in the _woods?_"

"You're doubling up on me again," he told her, smirking. She opened her mouth to apologize, but he waved dismissively. "No, it's fine. These answers kind of go together, anyway."

His casual grin faded away and he visibly tensed.

"After the dragon bite, when I started…well, changing. Most of it I couldn't really help. My body was changing and even my mind was starting to change, and there wasn't really anything I could do about it. I was worried…" He choked slightly. "I was worried if I became too much dragon, I'd lose control of my mind. I'd hurt someone. So I left." His voice became tight. "I've been living on my own for a while now, traveling around. And now I'm here."

It was her turn to regard him sympathetically. "I'm sorry."

He shrugged. "I'm used to it by now. All that was years ago. Besides, I've gotten some control over the whole shapeshifting business, so that's something."

There was a short silence. She met his eyes for a few seconds before hurriedly looking away.

"Okay, your turn again."

"So…" Hiccup smiled meekly. "Why exactly didn't you show me your power when we were kids? You were so excited to show me your sister's!"

"Ah, well." Anna rubbed the back of her head apprehensively. "It's…kind of a recent thing, actually. It's only started acting up over the last few days. I never knew I had it before."

"Ah." He nodded. "That makes sense."

As she eyed one of the black scale patches on his skin, something suddenly clicked in her mind.

"Wait," she gasped. "That big black dragon that people have been seeing flying over the woods. Is that…?"

"Oh. Uh. Yeah." He smiled apologetically. "That would be me."

She frowned, suddenly feeling a rush of concern.

"Hiccup…the kingdom knows you're there. They're going to send knights after you sooner or later." She reached out and touched his arm briefly. "Be careful, okay?"

Hiccup snorted. "Well, that figures! That's why I can never stay anywhere for long. People won't just leave me be." His expression softened. "But don't worry about me. I've got a ton of experience avoiding those guys. The concern is much appreciated, though."

Anna met his gaze for a few seconds. Suddenly feeling self-conscious, she looked away and focused on the branch underneath her.

Catching a glimpse of the faraway ground, Anna's head reeled a bit.

"Hey, um…" She fingered the tree bark underneath her. "Any way we can get out of this tree? It's just, you know, they've been gone for a while and we're a long way up and it just might be nice if we weren't all the way up here when we didn't need to be and I'm kind of worried I'm going to maybe fall out or something because this branch is a bit thin, or it could break or something, or…yeah."

Anna cut herself off, realizing she was rambling again.

"Yeah, that's a good idea," Hiccup agreed. "But hold onto me this time, okay? I don't want to accidentally drop such a badass fire-powered maiden."

Despite herself, Anna blushed a little. She let out a nervous laugh.

"Okay!"

His hands wrapped around her waist again, and this time she did the same for him. She still found herself tensing up at the close contact, but when her heart started to speed up this time, it seemed to be more from excitement than fear.

He carefully lowered her out of the tree, flapping his huge wings just enough to send them floating gracefully down to the ground. As soon as her feet touched the ground, Anna smiled gratefully.

"Thanks."

Anna wasn't sure why, but she felt the slightest bit of emptiness when he let finally go of her.

He certainly seemed to be hesitating, as if expecting her to run off at full speed as soon as he did.

After he did, he still eyed her warily, seeming to be preparing himself for the moment she did run off.

"Anna," he said softly. "I have one more question for you."

"What's that?"

"What are you going to do?"

The bluntness of the words stung her. She blinked several times, trying to think of a response.

"I have no idea," she said finally. "I mean, you heard Victoria. I can't go back, or they'll kill me. And with Elsa gone, there's nothing stopping them. It's not like I _want_ to leave the kingdom without a ruler, but it's not like I have much choice. So I don't know what I'm going to do."

Looking over the winged boy, an idea suddenly popped into Anna's mind.

"Hey, um…are you living around here, by any chance?"

His eyes flashed in brief surprise before he answered. "Well…yeah, for now. Why do you ask?"

"I was just wondering if, uh…if it would be okay if I stayed with you for a bit?"

Hiccup looked taken aback, eyeing her dubiously.

"Not for a super long time or anything," she amended quickly. "Just until I figure out what I'm doing and all. How to…how to _deal_ with Victoria and her band of psychos." She sighed, giving him a guilty look. "I know it's asking a lot, but I really don't have anywhere else to go."

Hiccup turned away, wrapping his arms tightly around his chest.

"I don't think you want to stay with me," he said tightly.

She looked at him in puzzlement. "Why not?" she asked innocently.

His voice dropped to an ashamed mumble. "It's…it's really not very safe to stay with someone like me. I mean, I've gotten better about controlling…well, you know, but it can still act up at any time."

"What are you trying to say?" she asked skeptically.

He took a deep breath. "If the dragon mindset takes over…and I'm fully transformed…well, you're going to get hurt. And I wouldn't be able to do anything to stop it. And the longer you spend around me…" He turned, looking at her pleadingly. "The more likely something like that could happen."

"I'm not exactly helpless," she remarked dryly. She yanked off a glove and summoned a pillar of fire in the palm of her hand. As it roared to life, Hiccup yelped and jumped back.

"That…" He waved his finger back and forth. "That is a _very_ good point."

Anna gave him a small smirk. "You go all primal-instinct-crazy on me, and I'll be able to protect myself just fine. But I'm not seeing that happening."

"You should." His arms wrapped back around his chest, and he looked at her through wide, haunted eyes. "I'm just…I'm _really_ not safe."

Anna shrugged. "Neither am I." She sent another column of fire out of her hand. Hiccup jumped again, although not as dramatically as before. "We might as well get together and be…a peril pair." _No, no, that sounded really bad. _"Um…a danger duo? A threat twosome?"

_No, no, no, these all sound bad!_ Anna wanted to bury her face in her hands. There went her attempt at being dramatic.

Although Hiccup was still hunched over into himself, Anna could see a smile starting to tug at his lips.

"_Anyway._" She straightened her shoulders, hardening her face into a serious expression. "All I'm saying is that I'm the _last_ person you should feel like you need to push away and protect. And I just need somewhere to go." She gave him another pleading look. "_Please?_ I promise I'll find a way to make it up to you if you help me!"

Hiccup let out a long, defeated sigh. A smile forced its way through his pained expression, and he began to chuckle. "You, once again, make a number of good points." He lifted his hands in surrender. "Fine, fine, you can stay with me. If you don't mind living in a dark, uncivilized cave and eating stringy meat, that is."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, _thank you!_" Before she could stop herself, Anna raced forward and wrapped the brown-haired boy tightly in her arms. The dragon wings got in her way at first, but as soon as she touched them, they started to retreat back into his body. (The sensation of feeling them do that would have utterly creeped her out if not for the fact that she was more focused on her overwhelming relief).

He stiffened slightly at the sudden touch, but eventually hugged her back. "I should be thanking _you_," he teased. "It'll be nice to have some company."

After she pulled away he grabbed her hand. His fingers brushing tentatively against hers, as if he was trying to find a hold that wasn't too intimate. Her cheeks grew hot, and she found she was holding back a delighted giggle.

Stopping to think about it, Anna had no idea why the prospect of a boy she barely knew with creepy dragon powers holding her hand excited her so much. Nevertheless, she decided to let the feeling linger as he led her off into the woods.

* * *

**HICCUP AND ANNA, SITTIN IN A TREE**

**H-I-D-I-N-G**

**Welcome to Chapter 4, a.k.a. Hiccup and Anna play 20 Questions!**

**My goal is to turn everyone who read this story into just as hardcore of a Hiccanna shipper as I am :3 Let me know how I'm doing so far! XD**

**Also, weird writing tip I discovered during this chapter to help fanfiction dialogue: Just…imagine the actors saying it. It sounds super self-explanatory and a lot of people probably do it automatically, but like…I've noticed that if I'm reading a fanfiction, sometimes I kind of accidentally develop a slightly different voice for characters in my head than they had in their respective movies. But when writing, I realized if I can't read characters' dialogue in their ORIGINAL voice actors' voice and have it sound totally natural, then it ain't authentic dialogue and I gotta fix it. I'm sure it sounds so stupidly obvious, but the read-it-in-Jay-Baruchel's-and-Kristen-Bell's-voices trick has saved me from SO much shoddy, off-sounding dialogue. I would highly recommend using it for any animated/CGI shipping you're trying to write, although with the characters' respective own voice actors obviously lol**

**I remember being so conflicted when writing this chapter about whether the word "badass" sounds too modern and out-of-place…but then I remembered that HHTYD and Frozen are already chock-full of anachronisms as is. Like…they have modern-ass bikes in Frozen and in both movies they use the terms boyfriend/girlfriend, which like…I'm pretty sure didn't really exist in that form in the olden days. So what's one more anachromism? XD**

**(Lemme know if it sounds TOO weird, though, and I can edit it out of later chapters if need be)**

**Alas, bless these babes they're just sO AWKWARD**

**Lmao Anna trying to be dramatic in order to impress Hiccup and failing spectacularly at it is such a Mood**

**So at last we have some Hiccup! And his dark secret is that…he has wacky dragon transformation powers! You can probably already see how uncontrollable fire powers and uncontrollable dragon powers could get…real dark later on. Stick with me for a rollercoaster of pain and suffering :D**

**Wait, wait, don't leave yet! There will be much dorkiness and fluff to be had along the way, I promise!**

**Also, damn…homegirl's company just went on a 10-day furlough because of the Coronavirus, so like…updates might well get more frequent, since I will likely be doing a looooot of writing during my unexpected vacation days. Let me know if you guys would be down for more frequent updates! Maybe every 2 or 3 weeks? Reviews let me know that you guys are invested in the story and are enjoying it, so be sure to leave some if you like it! :D**


	6. Chapter 5 - Adaptations

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

Deep within the forest lay a jagged wall of cliffs, rising sharply up into the imposing mountain backdrop behind them. The sheer face of one dipped suddenly inward at the bottom, forming a gaping, gray hole. Any light that had the misfortune of finding its way into this hole was eventually choked out into blackness, completely evaporating not 20 feet in.

It was into this hole that Hiccup unconcernedly led Anna. Although she felt a prickle of worry upon seeing the yawning black in the cave, Anna didn't slow down.

If Hiccup had been living in there a while, there was a very good chance any bears, wolves, or other potentially dangerous beasts had high-tailed out of there at the sight of a dragon.

"Well," he announced. "Here we are!"

After a few seconds in the cave, Anna's eyes adjusted to the darkness. She could see the back of it, but just barely. Strewn across the floor was a hefty pile of blankets and pelts, and leaning against one wall was a pile of sticks and small logs, presumably for firewood.

Anna wrapped her arms around her chest and rubbed them together vigorously. For whatever reason, she had imagined it to be significantly warmer in here than it was outside.

_Well, I guess that's what the blankets and furs are for._

She pointed at them curiously. "Where did you get the blankets?"

The furs she could, more or less, gather the origin from for herself. There were lots of animals in the woods, he could turn into a full-size dragon…

Hiccup chuckled a bit at the question. "Had to nab them from some old shepherd's house. Usually wouldn't resort to that, but seeing as winter's coming and everything…" He grinned meekly. "I'd just really like to not freeze to death, you know?"

"Well, you can at least make fires for yourself pretty easily, right?" Anna pointed out. "In dragon form, I mean. You just breathe on some of those sticks over there, and there you go!"

He didn't meet her eyes, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. "Not…not really, no."

The way he seemed to be fidgeting, still not looking at her, didn't seem to invite any further questions.

She shrugged. Well, maybe the myths and stories were a bit overdramatic—perhaps not all dragons could breathe fire. Or at least not the one that had bitten Hiccup.

"Well…" Anna smiled softly, a sudden idea occurring to her. "I can help with that."

She trotted over to the woodpile and picked up the biggest armful she could carry, grunting in effort as she hauled it to the middle of the cave and dumped it on the floor.

Taking a shaky breath, she let the fire sprout from her palms again and hastily swept it over the wood. As soon as it had lit, she shook out the flames in her hands and shoved her gloves back on.

No telling when it could get out-of-control, especially considering how utterly _nervous_ she was.

Anna glanced around the cave again, trying to put an explanation to why she was suddenly so shaky. Her eyes landed on the brown-haired boy. Was it _Hiccup_, she wondered? It was true that the whole becoming-a-dragon-voluntarily-or-involuntarily would be off-putting.

Somehow, though, the tremble in her nerves and the sweat pooling on her skin was nothing like that of a piece of helpless prey, backed into a corner to be devoured by a wolf. No, it was something else entirely. Fear mixed with what almost felt like…excitement.

_Oh, don't read too much into it_, she scolded herself. _I'm sure you're just eager about having a new friend._

Who _wouldn't_ be, after the events of a day like today? And a friend who didn't look like he'd be bad backup at all if Victoria came looking for her, at that.

"There you are!" She forced all thoughts of whatever-it-was from her head, smiling brightly. "All nice and cozy!"

Hiccup's eyes widened, and he looked back and forth between Anna and the fire. He gave her the slightest little impressed grin and Anna couldn't help but feel a bit giddy, giving a tiny excited hop.

"Wow," he said. "Having you around could actually be pretty handy."

"Hey, I'm not about to be some freeloader!" she argued, glaring at him. "You're going to all the trouble of letting me stay with you, the _least_ I can do is not just sit around like…" She hesitated. "Like…you know…a person who sits around and does nothing!"

"No, no, I get what you mean." He smiled meekly, putting a hand on her shoulder. "And I appreciate that."

Their eyes met for a few seconds, and Anna tensed. Hiccup suddenly looked away, yanking his hand off of her shoulder and hurriedly walking over to the blanket-and-fur pile.

"Well, better get your bed ready!" he said, laughing nervously. "It gets pretty cold out here, even for a mystical fire goddess."

Anna's cheeks flushed again. She shook it off, chastising herself.

He dragged several thick, woolen blankets and an elk and bear pelt over closer to the fire, starting to arrange them into something that vaguely resembled a sleeping bag. The furs wrapped around the blankets like a giant cocoon, effectively sealing out any cold air that she would have had to worry about.

"Thank you, Hiccup." She sat down and began to run her fingers through the soft bear fur. "It's perfect."

Hiccup returned to the blanket pile, dragging a few over and starting to make his own bed by the crackling fire. As Anna watched him work, whatever terror and anxiety that had been eating away at her about the mob earlier seemed to ebb away.

She knew that they were out there, and still out for her blood, but right at this moment, none of that seemed to matter.

She wasn't alone anymore. She had someone to help her now, someone who would have her back if trouble struck.

Maybe things would be all right after all.

* * *

_Mmmmmm…so warm…_

Anna blindly grabbed out at the wool blankets around her, gathering up a chunk of them and hugging them closely to her. Her legs curled up toward her chest, forming a tight ball completely enveloped in a tiny, cozy haven.

She heard the faint sound of crackling beside her, and knew that the fire must have died down. She knew she should restart it soon, but maybe she could sleep just a little longer…

The sound of loud clambering and scuffling and something being dragged across the cave floor brought her out of her sleep-induced haze. Try as she might to close her eyes and let slumber claim her once again, the racket proved to be too much. She opened her eyes and sat up just enough to see out of her makeshift sleeping bag.

The sight of an enormous green-black dragon hauling a bloodied deer corpse made her start, petrified with temporary fear. As soon as she remembered where she was, she relaxed.

_Well, I guess that's breakfast._

The dragon seemed to sense he was being watched and turned to look at her, deer still hanging from his jaws. He fixed her with a pair of slit-pupiled dark green eyes, boring into her own blue. Anna froze, slightly unnerved.

Despite how reptilian the eyes were, they suddenly shown with a very human fear. The dragon dropped the deer and turned away, skittering out of the cave in the same manner as a spooked cat.

Anna pondered the incident for a few seconds before shrugging and laying back down, closing her eyes and nestling back into her blankets.

* * *

When Anna woke again, Hiccup was gone. The dead deer was still there, to be sure, bleeding on the stone in a rather unsettling way. But the dragon boy himself was nowhere to be seen, out in the forest doing who-knows-what.

She sat up, still wrapped up in blankets. Her eyes flitted briefly to the deer's body, and she wondered if Hiccup wanted her to do anything with it. Although she had helped Lucille in the kitchen enough times to learn a few things about cooking meat on a spit, she preferred to leave the rather gruesome process of skinning and gutting the animal to other people.

She might have been willing to suck up her squeamishness and help out with that now if she had _any idea whatsoever_ of how to do it. Did Hiccup even have a knife, she wondered? She hadn't spotted one in the cave the previous day.

No, probably best just to wait for Hiccup to come back and take care of it. As much as she just hated sitting there and being useless with her utter lack of wilderness survival skills.

Well, in her feeble defense, living one's entire life being waited on in a castle _did_ tend to impede one's ability to survive indefinite periods out in the woods.

_I'll get better,_ she told herself perkily. _I'll learn how to hold my own out here, and then Hiccup won't think I'm useless!_

Still wrapped in her blankets, she scooted over to the fire and hastily restarted it. After it had roared to life again and Anna's gloves were safely back on, she sat still again.

She wasn't sure how long she sat huddled in that spot, staring out of the entrance of the cave at the bright-leaved birch trees and the fallen orange-and-red cover on the ground. She had half a mind to get up and take a walk outside just to have something to do, but leaving her blanket bundle didn't seem worth the trouble.

As she stared blankly out of the entrance, she found herself becoming beside herself with boredom. Somehow it hadn't occurred to her that living out in the woods would have a lot of downtime.

Anna let out a long sigh. It was all too reminiscent of her long, empty days in the castle, desperately trying to find ways to entertain herself without her sister to keep her company. It seemed almost laughable now, feeling bored in a castle with a library full of books and perhaps hundreds of places to explore, when here she was in a cave devoid of anything even mildly entertaining. She began to fidget, drumming her fingers against the cave floor.

She was beyond relieved when Hiccup finally walked back into the cave. He had shifted mostly back into his human form, the only remnants of his dragon form being a long, spiked tail and a pair of black ears poking out of his hair.

"You're back!" Anna said chipperly. "Where were you?"

"I was just…um…" He rubbed the back of his head, smiling timidly. "Just gathering enough energy to change my form back! It takes a while to walk it off sometimes."

"Oh." Anna blinked. Well, that would explain why he left so quickly that morning.

"Yeah, um…" He looked away, rubbing his arm awkwardly. "I'm sorry you had to see me like that."

"Why?" Anna raised an eyebrow. "S'not like I don't know you can't transform all the way or anything."

"Yeah, but I just…" Hiccup hesitated. "It's weird, okay? It's weird being around another human and not really being able to communicate with them. I mean, you could say 'hi, Hiccup' and all I'd be able to do is roar at you. That doesn't make for a very good conversation."

Anna giggled. "I mean, good point. But it's not like I'd expect you to have some long discussion with me while you're a dragon."

"Yeah, but still, there's this…" He waved his hands around wildly. "This weird species difference thing going on, and it's really awkward. It's just better if I'm not around any people. Besides…" His expression darkened, and he trailed off.

"What?" Anna's brow furrowed in concern. "Hiccup, what's wrong?"

"It's just…" He bit his lip. "Well, I mentioned this last night. When I'm like that, it's not all _me_ up there, you know?"

He avoided her gaze and walked over to the pile of furs, tugging a hefty knife out from under the pile. _Ah, so that's where he keeps it!_

Hastily he began to skin the deer, still not looking at her.

"There's some sort of feral…_thing_…that kind of takes over, and I get all these weird urges. And they're usually not pretty. See, I've gotten better about keeping them at bay, but they force their way out and get control sometimes, and then…well, they're in charge, and I can bid adieu to anything even slightly resembling Hiccup Haddock."

"So you're just like…" Anna blinked. "A wild dragon."

"Exactly." He looked up briefly to give her an apologetic smile. "Well, I mean…that's kind of me all the time. A wild dragon with varying degrees of sentience. Depending on the day."

Upon seeing her worried expression, he quickly shook his head. "No, no, but I mean…not usually! And if anything happens, I'll make sure I'm a long way away from you. That's why I made a run for it this morning."

Anna nodded slowly. "Understandable."

She watched him peel the skin off the deer's flank, carefully cutting out a piece of meat and sticking it on the end of a long spit (which he had also pulled from the fur pile—Anna was beginning to wonder how much he stored in there). As he began to turn it, she found herself watching his movements. The way he squinted in concentration, the way his hand was gripping the stick as steadily as a mechanical gear, the way he seemed to have meat-turning down to a science.

It looked so unbelievably tedious, and yet he was committed to it like it was the most fascinating thing in the world. Anna knew if it was her, she would have gotten impatient and dropped the meat into the fire a long time ago.

"You know," she said after a while, "my sister had problems with that too. She has a power that she had trouble controlling, and sometimes it kinda took over her. But she found a way to get it under control in the end!" She grinned encouragingly.

"The ice powers?" Hiccup gave her a quizzical look. "Those got out of hand?"

"Yeah, long story." She shrugged. "Our parents tried to help her, but they could never think of a way for her to hide them. So she was locked up in her room for years, and when she finally came out, she was such a wreck that she accidentally froze the entire kingdom."

"_What?_" Hiccup gave her a stunned look.

"It's fine, it's fine!" she said hurriedly. "Elsa's fine now. She, uh…she wasn't really in the best place for a while, but now she's good. And she's definitely not freezing the kingdom again."

"So she was stuck in her room for _8 years?_ And then she froze the _entire kingdom?_"

"I mean…yes. It was a bad time. But things are a lot better now! Well, until…" She glanced down at her gloved hands.

Anna gave him a pained look. "I think I'm having the same problem as her," she whispered. "This fire just…comes out at random moments, and when the gloves aren't on, it feels like there's nothing I can do about it. And Elsa…" She laughed dryly. "Wouldn't you know it, the _very_ day I finally accept that I'm not just imagining the whole thing and I need to ask Elsa for help, she gets called away on business! Right then!" She groaned. "Not like I could ask her what I should do as she was packing up, since her maidservant was trailing her. And then…well, you know what happened next."

She let out a defeated sigh. "I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm sorry, Hiccup. I wish I could tell you how long I'm going to be here, but I'm just…I'm so scared of what I could do. I don't want anyone to get hurt."

Hiccup chuckled. "Yeah, join the club."

"I'm sorry to be a burden…" She crossed her arms over her chest.

"Hey." He paused in his venison-roasting to reach out and put a hand on her shoulder. "You're really not. I may as well have some company out here, actually. In fact…"

His face reddened slightly, and he looked away. "I, ah…I don't know if our powers work the same way, but they're sort of similar, so they might. I've got a bit of experience controlling mine, so if you like…I can teach you? Or at least tell you what I know," he added quickly. "I really don't know if it'll be much help, since Thor knows what magic shenanigans are running all this, but…I guess I can try?"

Anna's entire face glowed. "You'd do that for me?"

"I mean…" He snorted, giving her a smirk. "It's not like I have much of anything better to do out here.

"Oh, thank you!" If he hadn't been holding the meatstick, she would have tackled him with another grateful hug. "Thank you times a billion! Wow, now I'm like…super in your debt, aren't I?" She rubbed the back of her head in concern.

"Eh." He shrugged. "You make me fires, so I'll call it even."

She let out another excited squeal, giving him her broadest grin. His expression turned serious.

"Hey, look…I know what you've been through. Or at least I have some idea. If I can stop someone else from being at the mercy of their own power, I will."

While the meat finished cooking, Anna filled Hiccup in on the details of her sister's 13-year isolation and her freezing of the kingdom, just so he had some idea of the kind of power he was working with. He didn't look particularly reassured, but she figured he would ask about what happened with Elsa sooner or later if she didn't tell him now.

He sawed the cooked slab of meat in two, tossing half to her. She tore into it, devouring it as quickly as she could despite the tough, stringy nature of it. Needless to say that the unseasoned, slightly sour taste wasn't what she was used to back at the castle, but her ravenous hunger assured that she didn't much care.

Before they left, Hiccup covered up the rest of the deer with a blanket and pushed it to the back of the cave, presumably to keep it out of sight of any scavenger animals. Anna reminded herself never to sleep with that blanket.

"Hey!" Anna's eyes lit up suddenly. "I know just where we can go!"

"Oh?" Hiccup regarded her curiously.

She clapped her hands excitedly. "The frozen lake! We'll go stand on top of it and practice my magic there. That way, if any fire gets loose, it'll just land on the ice and fizz out."

Hiccup didn't look nearly as impressed as she had hoped. "Or it could melt the ice underneath us and send up both plummeting to icy cold deaths," he deadpanned. "Would the lake even hold our weight, anyway?"

"Oh." Anna hung her head slightly. She hadn't thought of that. "I mean…I just wanted to think of a way to do this without probably setting the forest on fire."

Hiccup shrugged. "We can still do it _by_ the frozen lake. So in case you start pummeling fire out every which way, you can aim it in that general vicinity."

"But…I haven't learned how to aim yet, really!" she argued. "I could stumble the wrong way and accidentally set some leaves on fire and end up burning everything down."

"You don't seem that uncoordinated to me," Hiccup said, unfazed. "Anyway, I'd rather risk that than hypothermia."

When her look of worry didn't fade, he let out a long sigh. "Come on. Just keep your hands faced out toward the lake, and everything will be fine. Nothing's getting burned down."

Slowly, Anna nodded.

Perhaps he was right. If she was careful enough, maybe standing out on the ice wasn't necessary after all.

Worry temporarily dispelled, Anna followed Hiccup out of the cave. As they walked, she began to feel excitement slowly trickle into her until she was practically bouncing. For the first time since she had left the kingdom, she felt something other than hopeless.

"Oh, won't this be _great?_" she declared. "I'll learn exactly how to handle this baby and then I'll walk right back into town with everything under control and then Victoria will _have_ to leave me alone. She won't be able to say _I'm_ a danger anymore, no siree! Oh no, I'll show her who's safe all right!"

"It'll be good for you too," she added quickly, ever worried the brunette boy would change his mind about teaching her. "The sooner you help me with this, the sooner you can get rid of me!"

Hiccup smirked a little, but didn't say anything.

"I really do appreciate that you're doing this," she told him sincerely, expression turning briefly serious. "It means the world to me that you would help me with this, especially considering you barely know me."

Hiccup snorted. "_Barely know you?_ I know you well enough to know that you could easily tackle me and bury me alive if I didn't do your bidding! You did it with snow once upon a time, how hard could it be with dirt?" he teased.

Anna grinned. "Yeah, you're probably right. Still, I really appreciate it!"

His cheeks went a bit red, and he looked away. "Well, it's like I said. Not really a whole swath of fun attractions to keep me occupied in this forest."

The trees parted to reveal an enormous expanse of bluish ice, cracks spaced throughout it and blurry images reflected on its dull surface. Looking over it, Anna noticed it was far from frozen all the way, and there were more than a few patches of open water. Well, she supposed that made sense…it wasn't cold enough for it to be frozen over all the way. No wonder Hiccup was so worried about it breaking and them falling in.

She strode over to the edge of the ice, holding her hands out so that they were safely over the cold surface. Pulling her gloves off, she turned and grinned at Hiccup.

"Okay!" she called out. "Tell me how to make my fire not go all over the place!"

He went over to join her, rubbing the back of his head uncomfortably.

"Well…uh…"

She continued to look at him expectantly as he struggled with what to say.

"So…ah…I guess the idea is that you've got all this…" He waved his arms around wildly. "…power in you, right? Just kinda floating around in there until you decide to use it. Or until it decides you don't really have a say in the matter."

"Okay." She nodded earnestly.

"So I guess the key is that you'd want to…" He hesitated, brow scrunched up in concentration. "…channel it? Like figure out how to get it to go where you want it to. That's the best way to describe it."

"So…if you focus it toward your feet, it'll come out of your feet? That sort of thing?"

"Yep, that's about right." He nodded. "You want to know how I gave myself wings yesterday? Well, it was easy." He grinned, closing his eyes and scrunching his brow again. The wings tore their way out of his back with a gruesome ripping noise, and Anna gave an involuntary hop backwards. She realized that no matter how many times she saw it, it was still going to be jarring.

"All I had to do was get a hold of the energy and channel it all toward my back," he explained, flapping the big black wings a couple times. "Then you let the power do the rest. Took me forever to learn how to do it that quick," he added with a chuckle. "For hours I'd be walking around with half a wing and a black nub. It was so embarrassing."

"Okay. Well…" Anna twirled a piece of hair around her finger uncertainly. "Mine only ever seems to come out of my hands, I think. I've never set anything on fire with my back, luckily." She laughed awkwardly.

Hiccup's eyes lit up with sudden understanding. "Ohhhh…so maybe for you it's more about controlling the intensity, then."

Remembering the difference between Elsa making snowflakes and Elsa making an enormous circle of ice spikes, Anna nodded eagerly. "Yeah, I think you're right!"

"In that case, uh…" He hesitated again before laughing nervously. "Maybe you were already unconsciously channeling it to your hands or something. See, I guess it's like…it's like when you're in tune enough with your energy, directing it somewhere comes as naturally as moving a body part. Although I guess in your case, it would be the difference between wiggling your finger and waving your arm around."

"Okay, so…how do I do any of that?"

"Well…this is gonna sound super zen, but you have to really _sense_ the power inside you." He made a vague spiraling motion with one hand. "The first step to doing anything with it is feeling it in there. Close your eyes, see if you can pick up on it."

Anna did what he said, trying as hard as she could to detect any sort of throbbing energy in her body. But she didn't feel anything. She just felt like Anna.

_Anna being an idiot,_ she added mentally.

"I'm not getting anything," she said, the slightest edge of annoyance in her voice.

"Well, it takes a bit sometimes," Hiccup said.

Anna waited. And waited. And waited a bit more. She let out a resigned sigh, about ready to admit defeat and confess to Hiccup that his strategies weren't working.

And then all of the sudden, it was there. A humming energy, pulsing through her entire body like a swarm of restless insects.

"I found it!" she said excitedly.

"Great! So now try and direct it somewhere. But just a little bit of it."

Laughing giddily, Anna thrust her arms out in front of her and let the buzzing energy gust out of them, making a loud crackling noise. She opened her eyes to see an enormous column of fire erupt from her.

She quickly waved her hands, and it sizzled out.

Anna turned to Hiccup and smiled apologetically. "Ah…sorry. I think I got a little overexcited there."

"Nah, you're fine." He waved a hand dismissively. "It takes some getting used to."

"I think I've already been doing this," she realized. "That's how I was summoning the fire before. I just didn't realize that the whole…energy channeling thing was how I was doing it."

Hiccup let out a sigh of relief. "Well, that makes my job a hell of a lot easier. I guess we don't have to start from scratch."

As if to further prove his sentiment, Anna let just a little bit of power spark to her fingers, forming a steady fireball between them for a few seconds before she brushed it out.

"You don't seem too bad at this," he observed.

Anna laughed dryly. "You haven't seen the half of it. When I panic, the fire goes completely haywire. And I'm not exactly thinking about channeling anything when that happens." She thought about the fire that shot out of her hands and onto the barn as the stable boy told her about the dragon, and shuddered.

"So…it only gets bad when it's an emotional response," Hiccup realized.

Anna nodded slowly. Although she hadn't thought about it until now, the rationale made sense. "Yeah, it usually comes out when I'm annoyed, or stressed. Or scared. But I can't just…stop feeling that stuff, you know?"

Hiccup shook his head. "No, I guess not. But I guess you can train yourself to…try and calm down?" He smiled weakly.

Anna frowned, crossing her arms. "If it was that easy, I wouldn't be out living in the woods begging you for help!"

He bit his lip. "Ah, right, fair point. But I guess what I'm saying is that you have to train yourself to stay calm and try to relax in those kinds of situations. You know, look those pesky problems right in the face and say 'I'm not afraid of you!' So pretend I'm a bear coming at you—"

As soon as he started walking toward her, she hastily backed away, putting her hands up in defense. "Hiccup, no," she warned him. "This isn't going to end well!"

"Rawrrrr!" He responded by making obnoxious sound effects and waving his arms around wildly. "I am a ravenous specimen of wildlife who has triggered your automatic fire response! What are you going to do?"

"Probably burn you to death," she grumbled. "Besides, it's not gonna work if I don't actually feel threatened!"

In response, Hiccup's features suddenly started to morph, face elongating slightly and fingers lengthening into hard, black claws. His pupils narrowed to slits, the skin around his eyes toughening into dark scales. Some of his hair seemed to thin, displaced and shoved out by the scale lines now crawling across the top of his skull. He used his wings to propel himself forward, long claws outstretched and wide mouth opening to let out a massive roar in between rows of speared teeth.

Anna screeched. Feeling her palms heat up, she managed to turn them to the lake just in time for a massive fireball to shoot out across the water and land with an explosive sizzle.

"You idiot!" she snapped. "I could've killed you!"

"But you didn't." He shifted back into his previous mostly-human form, grinning like an idiot. "You managed to aim the fire the other way! So that's a definite start."

"There's not always going to be a frozen lake nearby to snuff out my fireballs," she pointed out.

"Yeah, yeah, I know," he said hastily. "But if we can get a hold of that fear reflex while we're out here, you're going to be in complete control the next time you freak out and there's actual important things nearby instead of a huge mass of ice."

Anna looked out at the lake, and then back to Hiccup. "Okay, okay, okay," she sighed. "But please just…" She made a few wild gestures with her hands, hoping that got the point across. "Never do…_that_ again."

"Yeah, I'm sorry…" He rubbed the back of his head, looking genuinely guilty. "I didn't know how else to get an instant fear response out of you."

"Well, you did a pretty good job." She glared at him. "But I'm sure there are other ways."

"Sure there are." He walked closer to her, putting his hands on her shoulders and meeting her eyes. "And we're not going to stop until we've found a way to control your powers so you can go home. All right?"

Anna nodded, lips slowly curling up into a smile. "All right."

"Now take a few deep breaths, and see if you can make something small."

Anna closed her eyes, trying to intertwine with the humming energy inside of her. She carefully held her hands out, trying to create some sort of barrier to allow as little energy as possible to seep out.

A tiny flame, barely bigger than a pinecone, sprung up in her palm. Anna turned to Hiccup and grinned so widely that she thought her mouth was going to break.

"Look how little it is!" she squealed. "I didn't even think I could even make something that wasn't trying to eat everything."

"See? That's great!" He clapped his hands. "And you know what?" He leaned in, returning her grin. "I'll bet if you put your mind to it, you could make something even _smaller._"

Anna snuffed out the fire and tried again, scrunching her brow as she tried to hold her power back. After several seconds of grunting in effort, only a few lone sparks flew out of the tips of her fingers.

Anna ran both her hands through the air, painting trails of sparks and watching them vanish into nothing just as quickly. She wasn't sure how long she stood there doing it, laughing giddily and sometimes batting at her own spark trails like a cat, but she was sure she had never felt so comforted in her entire life.

Hiccup watched her fluid movements, letting out a breath.

"You know what, Anna?" he said. "I think you're going to be just fine."

* * *

**Welcome to another chapter! The first in several "Hiccup and Anna bonding" chapters! Look, you can't look at a multi-chapter Hiccanna fanfic written by me, the most hardcore Hiccanna fan on this website, and NOT expect there to be a bunch of these XD Reading back over this chapter, I love how awkward they are when Anna first moves in (not that they're not ALWAYS awkward, but like…especially awkward) cuz it's like yo, we just met, but we're both being sought out to be murdered because we have scary powers…WANNA BE ROOMMATES? And then she moves in and then they're both like…well, now what? XD**  
**So I've noticed a lot of animal transformation stories just kinda go full-on angst (i.e. AAAAAHHHHH I'M A MONSTER OH NO) and don't acknowledge just…the sheer awkwardness of it? The logistical difficulties of still hanging out with your friends? The awkward fuckin sudden LANGUAGE BARRIER? I mean like…this stuff is often present, but it's played for like…massive amounts of horror and angst, and the pure like…uncomfortableness and awkwardness of it all is kinda glossed over in everyone massively freaking out. Like don't get me wrong, transformation horror/angst is delicious and I will definitely be exploiting the shit out of it later, but I also just wanted to have some spotlight on the…little practical inconveniences that come with voluntarily (and sometimes involuntarily) shapeshifting, if that makes any sense XD Idk, a lot of transformation stuff is either pretty lighthearted and mostly played for laughs or comedy or it's just 1000% played for horror and I was like I WANT BOTH plus some more realistic awkwardness thrown in about the whole thing XD**  
**I really did like writing the character contrast with these two where Hiccup is just like…super careful and cautious and precise and detail-oriented about everything (he has to be, or else his inventions wouldn't work!) and Anna doesn't get it because she is not AT ALL and just kinda jumps right into things and works out the details later, if need be, but she also finds it SO INTERESTING that someone is that precise because she's like "damn, that is a very different life approach than mine and I am INTRIGUED" (At least, I THINK this is how extroverts often think…my introverted ass wouldn't know XD)**  
**Also, behold, my favorite exchange:**  
**Anna: Oh yeah, my sister got locked up in her room for like 13 years and then froze the kingdom when she came out**  
**Hiccup: The FUCK U MEAN she FROZE THE KINGDOM?**  
**Poor Hiccup, he's got a feeling he's about to get in a bit over his head in this fuckin CHAOS KINGDOM where people be causing drastic weather shifts right and left, but the princess is hot, so screw it XD**  
**See, one of the things I really love about Hiccanna is that he's a pretty logical dude who could keep her grounded in the way she NEEDS…like I feel like he would have a sixth sense about when it's best to be super blunt and just say it how it is and when he should be a bit more conscientious of her feelings and use more tact, because he's actually a pretty sensitive dude himself and probably be pretty empathetic because of that. I feel like Frozen tries to convince us Kristanna is that ("Oh look, a LOGICAL guy who keeps Anna GROUNDED!") but it's like…he only really "grounds" her in a kind of rude and condescending way that she's definitely not going to take to heart because of his generally tactless approach (i.e. the man has a point about marrying a dude you just met being a stupid idea, but it's not really appropriate to give someone a super hard time about their life choices when you met them like 10 minutes ago) and also by trying to hold her back and be overprotective when Anna only really learns anything by taking risks. Hiccup I feel like would definitely not hold back from telling her when she's being an idiot, but he would also do it in a way where she actually understood WHY whatever-it-was was a bad idea and not just be like "No, just trust this thing is a bad idea because I said so!"**  
**So one of the biggest complaints I've heard about Frozen (and honestly one that I myself have become a little annoyed with in the years since the movie came out) is that we didn't really get to like…SEE Elsa learn to use her powers. Like she kinda experimented with them on the North Mountain but still wasn't really in control, and then she just kinda miraculously learns to control them by the end by…thinking about love? But wasn't she doing that already when she was prioritizing protecting Anna from her powers for all those years? So I decided to spend some more time in this Fire!Anna AU with her actually like…learning to control her powers and figuring out how they work. And it's definitely not as simple as just thinking about love, as we saw earlier XD I used firebending from ATLA for a lot of the inspiration for her powers, plus trying to think how Elsa's (and by extension, Anna's) powers would actually work, on a logistical level.**  
**Hiccup is such a precious man, he's like "AHA! I will teach this poor girl how to use her fire powers and finally have something to do!" but then he has absolutely no idea what he's doing XD Poor bby is trying his best!**  
**Also if you're interested in more frequent updates, PLEASE review and let me know! I'm making good progress on the later chapters and some of them I can even divide into two chapters (so more of a buffer for me!), so it's definitely feasible for me to update more frequently than once a month. HOWEVER, it's quite a bit more work to edit and post (fairly long!) chapters on a tighter schedule, so I'm only really down if you guys like…REALLY want it. And will leave reviews! I've put a lot of work into this and it makes me sad to think about it just kinda disappearing into the internet void :( PLEASE tell me what you think, good or bad! Well…just don't be a HUGE asshole about it if you think it sucks XD Until next month…or sooner, if you guys like!  
THAT WAS A VERY LONG AUTHOR'S NOTE, WOW I'M SORRY**


	7. Chapter 6 - Serenity

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

"So Hiccup."

He looked up from warming his hands over the fire, fixing Anna with a half-human half-reptilian gaze. He had woken up that morning with half his face crusted over with black scales, and a slit-pupiled green dragon eye in place of his normal one. He'd been trying to change it back, with little luck.

Not that this was out of the ordinary. His powers seemed to add sporadic bits of dragonness to Hiccup at random times, putting a patch of scales here, a cluster of spikes there. They were small enough things that Hiccup wasn't worried about them being dangerous, but big enough to where he considered them a huge nuisance.

The little traits would change back to human things before too long, but not before being replaced with other patches of scales elsewhere. Anna figured that within the next 24 hours, she would be looking into two human eyes again. No need to dwell on the half-reptilian stare.

"Hmmm?" His soft reply shook Anna from her thoughts.

She grinned meekly. "What is it…uh…what is it exactly that you _do_ around here? When you're not hunting or cooking or getting water or standing mysteriously in the woods waiting for troubled mob victims to come and beg you for help. I'm sure that can't take up _all_ your time," she teased.

He smirked. "Ah! Bored of the thrilling wilderness life already, are you?"

"No no no, not _bored!_" She shook her head quickly. "I like sitting in this nice warm cave and talking to you. I was just wondering what _you_ did to pass the time. Before I showed up, anyway."

"Ah, I see." He nodded in understanding. "Well, I guess there are worst places than the forest to be stuck. Sometimes I like to just take walks, see how far I can go before I get tired. It's partly to get the lay of the land, but it's also pretty fun to just watch the animals going about their business. I've learned to be quiet enough so that they can't tell I'm there," he added with a grin.

"Wow!" Anna slapped her palms on the cave floor, leaning in eagerly. "That sounds so cool!"

"It _is_ pretty relaxing. Not doing anything, just…watching all these little stories."

Little stories. Like the paintings that covered the castle walls back in Arendelle.

"I've seen a lot of herds of reindeer come through," he went on. "There's this one pond they always like to go to. Like out of all the ponds in the forest that are perfectly good, they pick this one. I dunno, maybe it's a sacred pool they use to communicate with their reindeer gods?" Anna giggled. "And the little foxes turn white around this time of year. You should see them when they try to pounce! 'Ah, yes, I am aware of exactly what I'm doing and I am without a doubt seamlessly going to catch this mouse. Oh, what's this? I'm falling on my face because I grossly miscalculated the distance between me and this rodent? What madness!'"

Anna broke out laughing, caught off-guard by his sudden fox impression.

"But yeah, you _do_ see a lot of pretty great stuff," he concluded. "Like one time I saw a couple of lynxes hunting, and another time I saw a moose bowl a tree over. It's something new every time."

"I imagine," Anna said.

There was a short silence, and then Hiccup's eyes gleamed with sudden excitement.

"Hey, I want to show you something," he piped up.

Anna's eyes widened "What?"

"Well, I dunno." He pulled her to her feet. "I think you're just going to have to find out for yourself."

"Oh!" Her eyes lit up with understanding. "Are we going on a _nature walk?_"

"Yes, indeed we are! Unless you'd rather stay in this boring cave?"

"I'm down!" Anna grinned, dashing to the front of the cave before Hiccup could even begin walking over. "Are you taking me to the sacred reindeer pond?"

"No, I'm taking you somewhere better than that."

"Oh! Moose-knocking-over-trees Central?"

"Nope! Even better."

He led her confidently out, stepping over every leaf and winding behind every tree like he had memorized the entire forest. Anna tried her best to follow his lead, avoiding kicking pinecones or treading on crispy leaves (as much as she was _sorely_ tempted to) in an attempt to make as little noise as possible.

She'd admit there would be little point in them leaving the cave if she just ended up scaring all the animals away with her zest.

The woods seemed quiet and empty at first, and Anna wondered if most of the animals had already gone into hibernation. But eventually the creatures started to make their presence known. She spotted two thin squirrels fighting over a nut, and later a cluster of reindeer pulling some lichen off of trees and grunting unhappily, as if the flavor was far below the margin of what they considered acceptable. She even caught sight of a lynx hiding in the thicket, watching them with big, anxious yellow eyes. Giggling, she pointed him out to Hiccup.

He smirked. "Oh, he's always in there when I come this way, just staring at me. Sometimes I wonder if he ever leaves. Doesn't he get tired of the same old bush?"

"Maybe he stays because he likes watching you," Anna mused. "He thinks you're interesting."

She cast another glance at the lynx. "I'm going to call him Fluffems," she declared importantly.

Hiccup looked at her dubiously. "You're naming a wild lynx…Fluffems?"

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Well, can _you_ think of a better name?"

He held up his hands in defeat. "I guess not. Fluffems it is."

He glanced back to the path they had been treading on, and his eyes widened suddenly.

"Hey, I think we're almost there!"

He grabbed her arm and eagerly pulled her along. She waved to the lynx as she went.

"Bye, Fluffems!"

Hiccup led her up the top of a bluff, where he hunched down and peered through a clump of brush. Anna followed his lead. She saw the trees parting to reveal a short dropoff that led down to a stream. Across the stream the trees thinned around a rocky outcropping to form a small clearing.

She watched it for several seconds, about to ask what on earth Hiccup had taken her all this way to show her when the rock of the outcropping seemed to ripple, and a large gray shape emerged from an unseen cave. As it stepped into the light, it formed into a wolf.

Anna gasped, starting to duck out of sight, but Hiccup put a hand on her back.

"It's okay," he said. "We're outside their territory. They won't hurt us."

She gave him an uneasy look. "Are you sure?"

He nodded. "Positive. I've encountered wolves to know that they only get aggressive if they see you as some kind of threat. If we're just up here minding our own business, they're not going to bother us."

"Okay." Anna nodded tensely. He had been living in the wild a lot longer than she had, so she trusted he knew what he was talking about.

The wolf looked around briefly before putting his big black nose down in the dead leaves, beginning to snuffle around in them. His tail gave a few of the slightest wags, as if he was mildly pleased by whatever he was smelling.

"I don't see wolves very much," Hiccup said. "At least not where there are humans nearby. So I got pretty excited when this pack came passing through. Their den's in there." He pointed to the outcropping.

Another wolf stole out of the den, a female. She trotted over to the other wolf and sniffed the air, whining inquisitively. He looked up, leaning over and licking her muzzle.

After a little more sniffing, the two wolves flopped down and set to work grooming each other. Anna couldn't help but smile at the way they nibbled at one another's fur, holding the other in place with their paws as they went.

"I'm sure you've read the fairy tales," Hiccup sighed. "They're portrayed as these…murderous, bloodthirsty monsters just because they have teeth and claws and have to kill prey. When really, all they're trying to do is keep themselves alive. Protect their own. They're not any more evil than any other animals."

A trio of bumbling wolf pups scampered out of the den, yapping and tripping over their bulky paws as they dashed over to their parents. The adult wolves paused in their grooming to thoughtfully watch their pups play. The female gave a warning growl when one started to venture too close to the stream.

"I know how that feels," Hiccup mumbled. "People see claws on me and they only see me as a killer."

He looked at his hands, as if expecting dragon claws to sprout from them at any second.

"They won't just let me live out here in peace," he added. "That's why I can never stay in one place for long. I guess wolves can't, either."

Anna turned and regarded him sympathetically. Sensing her eyes on him, he turned to meet her gaze.

"You're still tense," he observed, reaching out and putting his hand on her back again.

"Oh, um…" Anna messed with a piece of stray hair. "It's nothing."

Hiccup shook his head. "It's _clearly_ not nothing. What's wrong?"

"Just…" Anna bit her lip, taking a breath. "I was chased by wolves once."

"Oh. _Oh_." Hiccup's eyes lit up with a sudden understanding, his face tightening into a guilty expression. "You had a bad experience."

"Yeah, of a sort." She laughed hollowly. "I mean, I guess it makes sense. We _were_ on their territory…and we were riding in a sleigh, so we must've looked like some big, scary animal. And hey, we were going like 80 kilometers per hour or something probably looking like some kind of unholy…I dunno, bear-reindeer-human fusion, so I guess I can't blame them for freaking out. I'd want to get that thing away, too."

Hiccup still looked concerned. "You know, we can go if you want—"

She cut him off, shaking her head. "No, no, it's fine. I don't mind."

He stood up, reaching out a hand to her. "Are you sure? Because if this is making you uncomfortable, I don't want to—"

"Hiccup, really, it's fine." She gently pushed his hand away. "We don't have to go. Because…"

She gazed at the pups, frolicking through the bright leaves and bowling one another over like they didn't have a care in the world. She gazed at the parents, watching them with a sort of precise care that was the last thing she would expect to see in a wolf's eyes.

"I'm not scared anymore."

They watched the wolves in silence for several minutes. At last, the father crept back into the den, and the pups followed. The mother vanished seamlessly into the woods.

As they started back to the cave, it was a while before Hiccup spoke up.

"I'm sorry, if I'd known you got chased by wolves, I wouldn't have—"

"Hiccup, stop." She reached out and put a hand on his shoulder, turning him to face her. "I know just because I ran into some vicious ones doesn't mean they're all like that. I was nervous at first, but I'm okay now."

"Are you sure?" he asked again.

"Yeah, of course!" She nodded emphatically. "What I just saw…well, I'm pretty sure you were right. They were never gonna hurt us. I'm glad you took me to see them," she added.

His tensed-up body relaxed, and he started to laugh. "Well, that's a relief! Here I was thinking I wasted a good two hours of perfectly decent fire-sitting time."

Anna joined in laughing. "No, you're fine, trust me! I needed to stretch my legs anyway."

"Well, that you did!" he said. "But now I suppose it's back to cave-sitting."

"I suppose. Unless there's anything else fun to do in these woods?"

Hiccup shook his head. "Nah, it's not exactly an entertainment hotspot. Not much to do besides watch and think."

"Oh well. I guess hunting and cooking take up a lot of time. There wouldn't be much else to—"

"I used to draw."

He volunteered it so abruptly that Anna was caught off-guard, stopping in her tracks.

"What?"

"Before I left Berk," he explained. "I had a sketchbook. I drew all the time. Designs, pictures, anything that came to me."

A short silence. After he didn't continue, Anna finally gave in and asked the implied question.

"So…why don't you now?"

He sighed. "Paper and pencils are harder to come by than blankets or hides. And I can't really stay in civilization long enough to find out where I can get some."

"Oh. Right."

"I miss it," he added wistfully.

Anna's eyes fell on a nearby fallen birch tree, and a sudden idea occurred to her. She scampered over to it, breaking off one of the smaller branches.

"What are you doing?" Hiccup called after her, but she ignored him.

She strode back over and brushed away the coating of dead leaves on the forest floor below them, revealing a patch of dirt.

"Draw me something," she told him, handing him the stick.

Hiccup gave her a puzzled look. "What?"

"Anything you want."

He blinked a couple of times in surprise before shrugging and sitting down on the leaves, setting to work tracing patterns in the soil. Anna slowly sunk down next to him, watching each meticulously-planned, cautious stroke.

That's how Hiccup seemed to do everything—with a sort of careful precision that Anna knew she could never master if she worked on it every day for the rest of her life. There was something so fascinating about a person who thought everything through so deeply.

At last, the strokes in the dirt had formed themselves in what appeared to be an exaggerated caricature of a Viking, with a long head and a thick neck leading down into a bulky body holding a sharpened axe and a round shield. Anna was delighted by how detailed it was, right down to the dots down the middle of the Viking helmet and the lines under the eyes.

"It's one of the rock carving statues out in the ocean in front of my village. Gods knows who bothered to go out above the freezing water and bother to carve them." He laughed dryly. "Saw this guy from my bedroom window every morning, sometimes the first thing I saw when I woke up. I guess that's why I remember him so well."

"Well, he looks very foreboding," Anna offered. "If I was going to sail in and attack your village, I'd think twice about it."

"Heh. Yeah." Hiccup grinned. "Back when we were kids, Astrid used to dare Snoutlout and Tuffnut to scale down the cliffs and swim out and touch the statues. I was never included in that sort of thing, but it was kind of funny to watch them do stupid stuff like that just to try and prove they were tough. It's a wonder none of them ever died from hypothermia."

Anna giggled. "Oh, right, Astrid. That girl you were going to marry. Whatever happened with that?"

She wasn't sure why she had been able to put a face to Astrid's name so quickly. Something about the memory of Hiccup showing her Astrid's picture and saying he was going to marry the girl must've seared itself into Anna's mind even more strongly than she thought.

It must've been due to the fact that for quite a few weeks after Hiccup left, Anna had worried that come her sixth birthday, she would have to pick out a husband. It wasn't until Elsa had set her mind at ease by telling her how silly that was that all thoughts about the matter and the incident that had spurred it had slipped from her head.

She expected Hiccup to maybe blush at the question, or look away and mumble in embarrassment, but instead he looked as though he had been struck hard across the face.

"I…she…" The stunned, horrified look quickly faded from his face to be replaced by a more bitter one. "I hardly think she would be interested now," he said, laughing humorlessly.

"Why not?" Anna asked innocently. "You're really nice! And also funny, and a good artist, too," she added, nodding at the picture. "She'd be lucky to have you."

"Anna. _Look at me._"

He turned and met her gaze. Although she had been able to tune out the reptilian eye before, now it seemed to bore into her, having the same emotionless look of a snake sizing up its prey. Nonetheless, she met it evenly, making a point not to flinch or shrink away.

"That shouldn't matter," she retorted.

Hiccup scoffed. "Vikings _hate_ dragons. I seriously doubt one would want to wed a half-dragon. Or…whatever the hell it is that I am now. Anyways, it's not like it matters. I'm never going to see her again."

"So…you're never going back?" Anna's face grew soft with sympathy. "Not even when you get your powers under control?"

He visibly flinched. "There's no place for me there," he said tightly.

"That's not necessarily true," Anna argued. "If you go back, they might all be really happy to see you! They're probably wondering what happened to you. Astrid too."

"They're _not!_" he snapped, the force of his voice causing Anna to start slightly.

For just a moment, guilt flashed across his face. His voice softened, but he still looked annoyed. "I was always an outcast there anyway. Nobody really liked me, or…or even wanted me around, really. It's just as well that I left."

There was no whining tone or self-pity in his voice—he was simply stating it as fact. She noticed he was starting to shake, looking to be almost on the verge of tears. She wondered if there was something he wasn't telling her, but she didn't press.

"I'm sorry if I upset you," she said. "And I'm…well, I'm sorry you had to go through all of that."

"Hey, it's all right. It's not like you knew." He gave her a small smile, and she was relieved that he wasn't angry with her about her curiosity.

"And don't apologize for the thing in Berk," he added. "That's the farthest thing from your fault."

"I know. But no one should have to go through that."

"Eh. Water under the bridge." He waved a hand dismissively. "Really, if anything, I should be thanking you."

Anna raised her eyebrows. "For what?"

"For suggesting I draw again, even if it _was_ just with a stick," he said, grinning. "I feel better than I have in ages."

"Well, glad to be of service!"

"You know what?" Hiccup surveyed the stick, slapping it against his palm a couple times. "I think I'm going to keep this."

She beamed. "Hey, I really think you should."

* * *

**Welcome to Chapter 6! AKA Infrared-Ultraviolet gets up on her ecological soapbox for a hot sec because a girl is MAD SALTY about how Disney treats wolves, MY PRECIOUS FOREST DOGGOS DESERVE FAR BETTER**

**LIKE CMON THEY DON'T FUCKIN ATTACK PEOPLE IN PACKS LIKE THAT, THAT'S BASICALLY WOLF SUICIDE**

**They've been hunted to near extinction in Europe for like…centuries, why would they go out of their way to piss off the weird hairless apes with the death sticks who constantly kill them? -_-**

**Beauty and the Beast set such a bad example smfh (not to mention the whole inner-beauty-is-what-counts-unless-you're-the-girl message lmao)**

**That, and it gives me a nice lil "Aha, Hiccup helping Anna overcome her fears!" moment. I kinda wonder if I shouldn't have made it more of a drawn-out, long-term thing, since people don't typically get over fears that quickly…but then again, I included it partly to show how much Anna has come to trust Hiccup and his general judgement about things, so if he says it's cool and they have nothing to worry about she's probably gonna believe him. That, and Anna seemed more annoyed than scared during the wolf chase scene in Frozen anyhow, so I always imagined she'd be more uneasy and uncomfortable around wolves rather than downright terrified. But it's okay, Hiccup understands cuz THEY GONNA FALL IN LOVE 3**

**Still digging the character contrast about Hiccup being deep-thinking and precise about everything and just generally thinking with his brain instead of his heart and Anna being like "Whoa, how do you do that?" Not to mention that #livingthatADHDlife Anna really cannot comprehend how people maintain concentrated, intense focus on like 90% of things XD**

**It's my personal headcanon that all of the HTTYD kids (minus Hiccup, for obvious reasons) most definitely did dumb shit as kids to try to prove how tough and hardcore they were. Hiccup, meanwhile, was off on the sidelines laughing about how stupid they were and how they were gonna get themselves killed trying to prove their unending "Vikingness," but he's secretly still pretty bummed he was left out. Poor bby :(**

**Oho, what's this? Hints that there might be something getting left out in Hiccup's harrowing tale of his past? We shall soon see!**

**Well, that's all for this month! Again, if anyone is dying for more frequent updates, let me know! I'm still in quarantine and have no honest idea when my job is starting back up, so for now at least I could work with doing more frequent updates, if people really, really want them. However, I've been doing a lot of other stuff during quarantine as well, like working on my novels and playing a fuckton of DnD, so again, I'm only really down if it's something people REALLY want.**

**See y'all next time! Ciao!**


	8. Chapter 7 - Progressions

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

The cold air sizzled and popped as Anna twirled her hand through it, creating a glowing coil of sparks. She turned and looked at Hiccup, grinning as he nodded encouragingly.

She traced lines of sparks this way and that, creating designs and patterns and shapes that fizzed out into nothing in seconds. The power insider her was throbbing, as if begging to have more of itself let out, but Anna held it back.

"Hey, watch!" she called out as the last of the sparks faded. She conjured up a large, licking flame in one hand, trying to use the other to pull it in different directions. She tried for several minutes, but all she could seem to make was a blob with indistinct wings. She groaned in frustration, waving it out.

It was a shame she couldn't be as patient with these things as Hiccup was.

"What's wrong?" he asked, coming over to stand beside her.

"I was trying to make a picture, but I can't make anything cool," she huffed.

"Hey, you _did_ make a picture!" he retorted. "You made a rare flying potato!" In response, she glared at him.

"Hey, that flying potato was a work of art!" His smirk faded to be replaced by a more serious expression. "Anyhow, I'm sure you'll get better at this stuff the more you practice."

She turned and gave him a grateful smile. "Thanks Hiccup, that really means a—"

"_Boo._" Abruptly, he seized her shoulder and leaned forward, whispering loudly in her ear. Anna yelped, feeling her hands heat up and just barely managing to hold most of the power back and let only a couple of wispy flames out.

"Hey, better!" He leaned back and looked out to where her fire had disappeared, grinning broadly.

"Thank you." Anna sighed. "I just wish you didn't have to keep surprise-scaring me to make any progress with the whole powers-spurting-out-when-I'm-panicked thing."

"Well, I don't have to," he pointed out. "You could do it to yourself."

She gave him a puzzled look. "How?"

"Just…you know…imagine something really scary, but try not to shoot an entire inferno at it."

"Well…okay. I'll try."

She closed her eyes, letting herself imagine Victoria and her enormous mob running straight at her, all pitchforks and burning torches and hatred. She let herself get fully enveloped in the fantasy, her heart speeding up and her skin pool with sweat. Her hands began to warm swiftly, but she took two long breaths, trying to relax her rapidly-fraying nerves.

Staying as calm as she could as the pretend Victoria approached her, Anna let herself release a bout of fire. She opened her eyes to find the fantasy gone, and two very reasonably-sized flames spouting from her hands. They fell against the ice and sizzled out.

Reasonably-sized. Nowhere near the pillars of fire that had shot from her when the stable boy had spooked her with his dragon story.

"I'm doing it, Hiccup!" she yelled triumphantly, pumping her fist high in the air. "I'm doing it!"

"That's great!" he replied, ducking away slightly from her loud voice.

"I think this channeling thing is working." _At least, I really hope it is._

She tried again, this time imagining a swath of bears coming at her. Once again, she was able to calm herself to the point where only a small amount of controlled fire was able to escape her.

"I did it again," she said, although she was hunched over and panting from the effort of holding most of her fire back. Eventually, she collapsed heavily onto the ground.

"Yeah, you did." Hiccup reached out a hand to help her up. She hastily picked up her gloves where they had been lying by the lakeshore and slipped them on before taking it.

"You know, maybe we should call it quits for today," Hiccup said. "You seem pretty tired."

"Me? Tired?" Anna said in between pants. "Never!"

He raised his eyebrows. "You sure about that?"

Anna let out a long groan, rolling her eyes. "Okay, _fine_. Maybe I am a bit tired. Just a little bit."

"Well, it's not like you should be expected to keep going nonstop all day long," Hiccup pointed out. "We can pick up right where we left off tomorrow. Let's just go get something to eat."

Anna's eyes widened and she gave an excited bounce, all thoughts of training immediately dispelling from her mind. "_Yes!_"

As they walked back to the cave, a sly smile played across her face as a sudden idea occurred to her.

"Soooo…" she said, drawing her words out slowly. "We seem to be learning all about how _my_ powers work…but what about yours?"

Hiccup hadn't told her much about his dragon transformations beyond what he had shared about losing control they day they met, or the small bits of information about how he regulated them to help her manage her own powers. It was odd to think about a boy as even-tempered and mild-mannered as him to lose any sort of control over his dragon transformations, but from the way he had spoken about it, it had happened before. Anna thought it might be a sensitive subject, but she had to admit she was genuinely curious.

"I mean, your scale patches shift around and you'll randomly wake up with a dragon ear or half a tail," she added. "What's up with that?"

He looked away, his gazed becoming fixed forlornly on the ground in front of him. Anna instantly felt guilty.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," she said quickly. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to—"

"No, no, it's fine," he insisted. "It's better you know, in case—well, in case you have to get away in case I get like…well…_that._"

Anna nodded seriously, though her eyes were still eager.

"I've been working on figuring out the ins and outs of it. I've been this way for five years, and some aspects of it still seem pretty random." He grinned meekly. "I couldn't tell you for the life of me why some days I have more scales than others, or why sometimes I'll grow half a tail when I'm sleeping. Whatever that dragon bite did to me seems to take great joy in messing around with my body at random times. You can imagine that keeps me staying in any civilization for long."

He brushed his fingers irritably over a patch of scales that had grown on his neck, as if hoping to simply flick it off onto the ground.

"But over the years, I've picked up on _some_ patterns," he went on. "I usually turn all the way when I'm feeling especially angry, or protective. Or hungry. That's why I turn in the morning sometimes, right before I go hunting."

"Do you mean that just makes it easier to transform, or do you…?" Anna trailed off.

Hiccup bit his lip.

"If the feeling is strong enough, it's not voluntary. That's when I…"

"Lose control?" Anna guessed.

"Yeah. Or can. Like I've said, it's not all me up there. I have to fight to keep a hold on myself."

"Oh." Anna studied the ground for a few seconds before perking up again.

"Well, I don't think any of that should be an issue! You're not really the angry type anyway, and you always bring back plenty of meat for either of us to really get hungry. So what would there be to make you turn into a psycho killer dragon?"

"I _hope_ you're right," he mumbled.

"Hey, uh…" Anna twirled a piece of hair around her finger. "For what it's worth, I can't see you ever going crazy and trying to eat me. You've never done anything that made me feel scared or anything. And like I said, if you do…" She started to pull off a glove, giving him a knowing look.

"Yeah, yeah, you'll burn me to a crisp." He smirked, rolling his eyes playfully. "I guess that's pretty good incentive not to. Well, that and the fact that I enjoy you as a person."

Despite herself, Anna's cheeks turned bright pink.

His expression turned serious again, and he turned to face her, putting his hands on her shoulders.

"I'll…I'll always try really, really hard never to hurt you. I promise. I don't think I could ever forgive myself if I did."

This, naturally, did nothing to help Anna's blush. Hoping she could distract him from it, she smiled reassuringly.

"Hey, I trust you! I honestly believe that you won't ever. And I promise I'll try not to hurt you, either." She glanced down at her gloved hands, feeling a prickle of uneasiness.

"Ah! So I won't eat you, you won't set me on fire, I'm glad we've got that all—"

He stopped suddenly. The distant sound of leaves crackling echoed through the forest, accompanied by the faintest murmuring of voices.

"There's someone in the forest," Anna realized.

Hiccup gave her a fearful look. "We have to get back to the cave."

"Agreed."

They hurried back to the cliff walls side-by-side, walking briskly, but not so briskly that they risked accidentally treading on any crunchy leaves. The voices behind them seemed to approach as quickly as they walked the other direction, thankfully not getting any louder.

By the time they arrived back at the cave, the voices and leaf-crunching were so faint that they were barely audible. Nonetheless, Hiccup and Anna huddled in the back of the cave, trembling.

Once the sound of other humans had completely faded away, Anna finally spoke.

"There's…there's _people_ in the woods, Hiccup," she whimpered.

"I know," he replied, his voice tense. "This is…this is odd. People usually avoid the forest. Before you, I'd never seen anyone go treading about in it."

"But what are they _doing_ here?"

Hiccup shrugged. "Hell if I know. But I doubt they'd be any friends to people like us."

_People like us_. Anna shuddered. Is that all they were now? Outcasted social rejects doomed to spend the rest of eternity avoiding humanity?

_Oh. Right. The kingdom is out for my blood._ She felt stupid for temporarily forgetting. But were _all_ of them ready to kill her on-sight? Or, more likely, were there still a fair few people who had no idea what she'd done and didn't wish her any harm?

She supposed it was impossible to know, just by listening to the crackle of leaves and the faint sound of voices, which of these types were the ones out wandering the woods.

Anna's voice took on a more urgent tone. "What do we do if they find us?"

Hiccup turned and gave her a grim look. "We hope to the gods they don't."

* * *

**Hello, welcome back! 'Tis but a humble training chapter, but hey, Rome wasn't built in a day. Or in this case, Anna's highly-dangerous fire powers weren't mastered in a day XD If you're getting a lil bored of training, fear not—things are about to get pretty spicy REAL soon!**

**Besides, what can I say? I need to give these dorky idiots some relatively laid-back time to flirt when they're NOT in constant danger—which will be most of the latter half of the fanfiction, unfortunately for them D: I also wanted to give them some quality getting-to-know-each-other time before the hardcore angst begins in earnest, at which point there will be NO ESCAPE FROM PAIN! *evil laughter***

**Fun Fact: A lot of Hiccup's character is inspired by a boy I was HARDCORE crushing on in college (yes, yes, I know, how basic of me to base my story's love interest on someone I was swooning over IRL XD), and some of the dialogue from this chapter was heavily inspired by one of my favorite interactions of ours. One time I tagged along with him when he went to this dining hall-restaurant complex thing to get a snack but didn't end up ordering anything, and I was like "HA! This was a trap! I never wanted food! I came along just to irritate you!" and he was like "Ha, well, joke's on you, I enjoy your company!" and I just about Died. Ah, good times. Our whole friendship had (and kinda still has) the biggest Hiccanna energy, so you'll have to forgive me if some of that works its way into my Hiccanna fanfics XD**

**Oho, who could this be? Mysterious ne'er-do-wells in the forest? Or perhaps potential ALLIES? Allies who will eventually stab our lovely couple in the back? Ne'er-do-wells who secretly turn out to be allies? Find out next chapter!**

**Also, random aside, but I'm currently writing a Hiccanna superhero AU three-shot as kind of a side project to submit in between chapters of this. Be on the lookout for it over the next few months!**


	9. Chapter 8 - The Hunt

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

Pale fingers tapped on the wooden windowsill, still discolored in many places from all the times it had been frosted over. Thin, red lips curved into a small smile as two dark eyes took in the thick trees covering the mountainside in the distance.

Ah, the woods. Such a perfect place to get hopelessly lost.

Fingernails dug into the wood, dragging and leaving scratchmarks.

Or worse.

It was oddly poetic, the way the tall triangular window perfectly framed the rugged mountain forest. Anyone who looked through it could get a perfect view of a shadowy death trap filled with fangs and claws and all manner of other nasty things directly from the comfort of a castle. A castle well-lit and heated and quite far off from the utter darkness and frigid air that now shrouded the woods under a new moon.

Yes, this was one of many places Victoria was glad to be far, far away from.

Her eyes strayed to the portrait hung on the wall, lit only by the flicker of candlelight. It was a commissioned painting done so skillfully that it somehow managed to capture every wisp and wave in the queen's cream-colored hair, the curl of the strands in her braid, every shade of blue in her huge eyes and the way her dark violet eyeshadow faded suddenly into her fair skin. Everything down to the purple shine of her cloak and the glow of her skin was captured perfectly. The red of her lips was especially striking, standing out from the cool colors of the rest of the picture like fire on a snowcapped mountain.

It was beautiful.

Victoria smiled at the picture, fingernails still working on the windowsill.

"Everything will be different when you come back," she whispered.

A sudden flash in the corner of her eye caused her head to snap back to the window, just in time to see an enormous column of fire shoot up out of the trees before dissipating into nothing. It was followed by another, this time a spiraling coil of fire, and then another that, unless Victoria's eyes were deceiving her, seemed to very briefly form the shape of a sunflower before vanishing into the night.

Victoria's body tensed with brief shock, quickly giving way to a sharp confusion. She looked up at the starlit sky, completely devoid of any clouds that could send down a lightning strike capable of starting a fire.

It had almost looked like some sort of help signal. But Victoria knew better.

_The dragon._ As soon as the thought came to her, she relaxed. Of course that's what it was. It was just that bloody dragon letting off some steam in the forest, staying well away from the kingdom like always.

Unless…

Victoria shook her head. No, that couldn't be it. Not after all this time.

_You're being ridiculous,_ she chided herself. _That problem is dealt with._ She felt the intense blue eyes of the portrait boring into her, seeming to judge her.

"I know I'm being paranoid, all right?!" she snapped, half to herself and half to the critical painting. "I just can't help but wonder…"

A sharp knock on the door caused her to start, spinning around and clutching the windowsill.

"My lady?" came the concerned voice outside the door. "Who were you talking to?"

"No one!" she said quickly. "Come in!"

The door opened, and the captain of the Guard stepped into the room, something gray and limp dangling from one hand. Several of the other Guard members stood close behind him, peering into the room but not entering it.

"My lady, my men have tracked down and slain two of the wolves you spoke of," he said.

"We almost got 'em all, but one of 'em got away!" growled another Guard member. "She 'ad a bunch of lil ones with 'er too…boy, would those 'ave made some nice wall trophies!"

"Oh, well I'm sure you'll get the rest next time. _Won't you?_" She gave the guard a threatening look. He shrunk away, but nodded.

The captain of the Guard approached her, holding up the gray object that she now recognized as two wolf pelts. She took them and looked at them fondly, running the furry skin through her fingers and draping them proudly around her neck.

"Ah, good, good. The sound of these bloody things howling at night gave me the chills. It was only a matter of time before the ravenous beasts reached the kingdom and started preying on the children." Starting to play absentmindedly with one wolf's tail, Victoria gave him a prying look. "The sooner you get rid of the rest of them, the better."

The captain of the Guard nodded quickly. "Y—yes, My Lady. Anything you like."

"You're dismissed, then," she said coolly. The expectant look fell from his face to be replaced with one of vague disappointment.

"I _said_ you're dismissed," she repeated when the captain made no move to leave. Flinching at her sharp tone, he turned and sulkily stole out into the hallway.

"Wait," she said suddenly, a thought occurring to her. "Aungard, wait."

His head popped back into the room just as quickly as it had entered, eyes bright with excitement. "Yes, My Lady?"

"Did you or your men see anything…strange…out in the forest? Anything at all out of the ordinary?"

The captain of the Guard looked at her in confusion. "No, My Lady. Why would we? The forest looks the same as it always does."

"No sign of…say…" She clicked her tongue. "Human activity?"

He shook his head rapidly. "Nothing out there but wild animals, I can assure you."

_So it was the dragon._ For some reason, there was still a nagging doubt in the back of Victoria's mind. Dragons didn't form shapes with their fire, even crude ones.

She would know.

The captain of the Guard lowered his voice. "If this is about the princess, I can assure you there is no possible way she is still alive. I am certain the dragon has killed her."

Victoria beamed. "Lovely! I do wish there was some way to be sure though, so that I know before I send you out to kill the thing."

"Regardless, she cannot survive for as long as she has been out there. She will starve, or die of thirst or disease. Although I cannot help but wonder…" The captain gave her a concerned look. "What are you going to tell Her Majesty when she returns?"

"That…" Victoria began to slowly saunter across the room toward him, balancing daintily on her toes in a way that made her midnight blue dress sway around her ankles.

"That…is for me to worry about, not you," she said softly. "I will think of a way to make Queen Elsa understand. As long as you keep quiet, we have no reason to be concerned. Mmmm?"

Slowly she slipped her hand onto his cheek, and the captain's skin flushed.

"In any case," she murmured. "Our beloved queen will not be back for a good long while. So don't you worry your pretty head about it."

She gently pulled his face forward until her lips met his. She kissed him for a few brief seconds before practically pushing him away, feeling slightly nauseous at his wide-eyed expression.

"Now you're dismissed," she said, he voice regaining its detached tone.

He reached for her dress, but she gave him a scorching look. "Not today," she hissed.

The captain of the Guard nodded quickly, scurrying out of the room without another word.

As soon as he had gone, Victoria collapsed onto the massive, light purple bed. Pushing the wolf pelts aside, she buried her face in the covers.

It was still a pleasant surprise, she thought, that Queen Elsa had said she could sleep in her room while she was away. Her bed was much softer than Victoria's, and the covers undoubtedly smelled much nicer. A soft, minty smell with just the tiniest hint of white chocolate…almost exactly like Elsa herself.

That was how Victoria fell asleep: Breathing in the scent of the covers, holding her wolf pelts close, eyes opening occasionally to steal glances at the painting on the wall.

The fear of what really lay out in that forest biting into her like a mosquito every second until she was swept into unconsciousness.

* * *

**Hello and welcome to another chapter. My apologies, I know it's a short one—but hopefully a spicy one! Fear not, later chapters will be MUCH longer, especially as we get further into the meat of the plot and I fall into my ever-familiar bad habit of trying to cram way more character interactions or personal character reflections I personally find fun/intriguing than I really have any business doing XD **

**Heh, weren't expecting that POV change, were you? **

**Well, in case anyone was curious what's going on back in Arendelle, here's a snapshot! What could that crafty Victoria be planning? I guess you'll just have to wait and see!**

**Starting next month, get ready for some angst! Things are about to take a…much darker turn. Hope y'all are ready.**

**Also I had one astute reviewer say that they were getting the impression that Anna is (or at least feels) overshadowed by Elsa here…keen observation! You're not entirely wrong, and in fact this plot point will come back around later! Not for a little while, but Elsa (or at least Elsa's influence over Anna) play no small part in this story.**

**To the reviewer asking if we'll see any of Hiccup's Viking tribe—oh, don't worry, we certainly haven't heard the last of what happened with them! Although I can't promise that resolution is as…pleasant as you're hoping for :/ As for Elsa returning—yes, she will be, and she will certainly have opinions on all the shit that's gone down in Arendelle! She won't be back for a while, but she's going to be a pretty major player later on.**

**As far as ages go, Anna is 19, Hiccup is 20, Elsa is 22, and Victoria's age is purposely left a little ambiguous but she's implied to be around Elsa's age, maybe a bit older.**

**Also just FYI I'm back at my job again, so more frequent updates probably aren't on the table anymore :( HOWEVER if people REALLY want them, I'd consider it. I haven't been getting that impression much thus far so I'll just stick to once a month unless I get a significant number of requests to update more frequently.**

**See you in August!**


	10. Chapter 9 - Troubles and Confessions

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

Hiccup barely managed to conceal his alarm as Anna suddenly yanked him away from the frozen lake, dragging him into the recently snow-blanketed forest.

"Uhhh…what are you doing?"

"I've decided I'm going to practice somewhere else today," she declared. "I'm not gonna have a big icy lake to snuff out my fire forever! Might as well figure out how to work it without one now."

Hiccup didn't look so certain. "Are you sure? I mean, if you don't feel like you're ready—"

Anna glared at him. "Are you saying I'm not ready?!"

"No, no, of course not!" He held up his hands in surrender. "If you think you're ready, you probably are. All I'm saying is that we have plenty of time, so if you don't want to leave—"

"Do we, though?" Anna gave him a searching look. "I mean, I was hoping I could go back to the kingdom by the time Elsa gets back. And these diplomatic trips rarely take much more than a month."

"Oh. Right." Hiccup's face fell, like he had forgotten briefly that she was planning on leaving.

If she was honest with herself, she had forgotten too. She had become so accustomed to Hiccup and life in the forest that the castle and Arendelle seemed like a distant memory.

"Well, no matter," Hiccup said quickly. "We can practice in the forest if you want to."

As Anna searched through the trees, trying to find the perfect spot, her thoughts began to wander. When _was_ she going to return to Arendelle? Certainly not until Elsa came back, and was able to do something about the multitude of people who wanted her dead.

Probably even more now, if Victoria's influence was anything to go by.

As much as she had hated to leave the kingdom with no ruler, the mob of pitchfork-yielding civilians had left her little choice. She hoped it wasn't wrong to value her own safety over the political stability of the kingdom.

Besides, life in the woods was a tranquil life. Wake up, eat with Hiccup, train with Hiccup, talk with Hiccup over a warm fire, perhaps explore the woods with Hiccup. It was much better than Victoria's prying eyes looking over her shoulder every second of the day, or the hectic duties that came with being a surrogate queen.

_I'm just trying to keep everyone there safe. That's all it is. I'll go back when I have my powers under control._

At last, she found a small clearing, sheltered mostly from the fallen snow by a cluster of thick-leaved birch trees.

The sound of the distant clumping noise of feet in the snow made her tense suddenly, her breathing speeding up.

"You okay?" Hiccup asked.

"I thought I heard…" Anna sucked in her breath.

Hiccup listened briefly before smiling reassuringly.

"Ah, that's just some woodland animal. The footfalls aren't heavy enough to be human."

"Right." Anna nodded, but she was still apprehensive. She wasn't going to admit it, but the sound of humans in the forest the other day had put her perpetually on edge.

In their typical warm-up routine, Anna pulled her gloves off and put them away, taking a deep breath before conjuring up a small flame in her hands. She noticed it crackling and sputtering with more intensity than usual. Carefully, she tried to stop the flow of power and make it smaller, but it only seemed to come faster and make it worse. She let out a groan of frustration, and the flame grew to the size of a loaf of bread. Anna yelped in alarm, frantically attempting to wave it out.

"I…think you're channeling a bit too much," Hiccup offered. "Try relaxing a bit."

"I know, I know."

That seemed to be the extent of the help he gave these days. _Channel less and relax more._

Anna didn't fault him for it—she didn't expect him to know all of the ins and outs of her powers. Nonetheless, she still sometimes felt like she was on her own.

Didn't mean she wasn't grateful for the company.

She finally managed to wave the flame out and tried to summon a spark shower, only to get streams of fire coming from her fingers instead. She yelped again, but managed to catch it in time before any of it escaped.

Hiccup eyed her in concern. "Are you—"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" she said quickly.

She tried to conjure sparks again, still getting flames. They were smaller this time around, but definitively _not_ what she wanted.

_What's with me today?_

She took a break from sparks, opting to make a small fireball. It seemed to work perfectly at first, until she noticed the fireball was growing and growing, pushing her hands apart and sending heat crackling through the air around her.

She desperately tried to quiet the thousand thoughts flying through her mind, let loose every tense muscle making her body into a stiff, unmovable board.

_Okay, okay, it's fine. Focus._

As soon as she began to soothe herself, the fireball shrank. Anna let out an audible sigh of relief.

"That's it," Hiccup said from close by. "Don't let yourself get alarmed. The only way to stay in control is to be calm."

The crunch of a distant foot on snow made Anna start. Before she had time to process that it was probably just another animal, an image of Victoria flashed through her mind, running through the forest with sharpened spears and an entire throng of armed townsfolk behind her.

All at once, the fireball dislodged itself from her hands, shooting across the clearing and landing in a pile of leaves. Before she could fully take in what was happening the fire had started to spread, ripping over the leaves and tearing at the tree trunks. For a split second, she was back outside the stables again, watching in stunned silence as the fire crawled up the walls and over the roof.

She heard a loud scream, and after a couple of seconds, she realized it was her own mixed with Hiccup's.

Hiccup rapidly shifted partway into dragon form, using a long tail and thickened, half-dragon arms to hurl enormous mounds of snow at the flames. Anna did her best to follow suit, picking up handfuls of the white powder and throwing them at the fire as hard as she could.

In a few hectic seconds the fire was gone, but the blackened scorchmarks and dark ash stood out in the white forest like an inky stain.

Anna stared at the burned spot for several seconds, her breaths coming hard and fast as it sunk in what had just happened. She collapsed against a tree, burying her face in her hands.

"No…no no no…no no no no NO!"

"Hey…Anna…it's…" Hiccup's soft voice told her he had changed back into full human form, but she paid him no mind.

"I thought I was getting better, I thought I could learn to control it, I really did, but I just…_can't!_ I can't do anything without setting things on fire and I'm going to burn something down and people are going to die because of me!"

"Anna! Anna, no! Look at me!" She peered out at him between her fingers. "You _are_ getting better. I've seen you. You're so much better than when I first started training you."

"Does it matter?" Anna whimpered, feeling her eyes grow hot with tears. "If I can't control my power when I get scared, what's the point? I can't just be calm all the time!" She heaved a heavy sob. "I'm…I'm nothing but an uncontrollable menace." She glanced at the gloves, lying on the ground a few feet away. "It'll just burn right through those, and then I'll burn down the entire kingdom!"

"Anna, listen to me." Hiccup put his hands on her shoulders, green eyes staring intently into hers. "_No one_ is going to burn down any kingdoms, all right? We're not going to stop until we figure out how we can get your powers under control. _I promise._"

The complete sincerity in his voice made Anna's tensed muscles relax a little bit, but tears were still streaming rapidly from her eyes. "But don't you see?" she choked. "I can never go back. Not even when Elsa gets back. I'll just be a danger to everyone."

"It was _one little fire_, that doesn't mean—"

"_No!_" Anna cut him off furiously. "If that snow hadn't been there, that 'one little fire' could've just…started spreading, and just…taken over everything. Everything's so dry this time of year that there wouldn't have been…been much of anything to stop it. I could've ravaged the whole forest! Face it, Hiccup." She sniffled loudly, crumpling even farther into herself. "All I'm ever going to do is destroy things."

Hiccup snorted derisively. "Well, that's just stupid. You didn't destroy me, did you?"

Anna's eyes widened. "N—not yet, but I c—could…"

Hiccup sighed, releasing his grip on her briefly to go and get her gloves. She wordlessly held her hands out, and he slipped them on.

"Come on," he said softly. "I understand why you're scared, but we're going to keep working at it until you master it, and you _will_ be able to go back. This was just a bad day, all right? You've been getting better, and you're going to keep getting better. We're going to fix this."

"Can't you see? I _can't!_ What's the point in being able to make a few spark designs when I'm in a good mood if I can't stop fire from going everywhere when I get overemotional? When it really _matters?_"

"I told you already. We're going to figure it out."

Anna slid down the tree to sit curled on the ground, body shaking with sobs. Hiccup slid down with her, slowly wrapping his arms around her and pulling her close to him.

She was still shaking as he held her, whispering soothing words into her ear, but her sobs had started to slow down.

"Th—thank y—you," she stammered, body starting to stiffen with sudden embarrassment.

"It's nothing," he muttered, although his cheeks were starting to flush with embarrassment as well. "And I meant what I said, you know. We're going to figure this out."

"Why…" Anna glanced past him at the scorched ground. "Why are you doing all this for me? Why do you put up with all…this? The hunting, the training, you…you could probably make me leave anytime you wanted…" She smiled meekly at him. "I wouldn't blame you, really."

"Because you're my friend," he answered evenly, meeting her gaze.

In response, Anna leaned her head against his shoulder, slowing her panicked breathing to match his calm, steady breaths.

* * *

"So Anna."

"Hmmm?" Anna looked up from eating her very nutritious dinner of rabbit-meat-on-a-stick.

"I haven't…" Hiccup rubbed the back of his head anxiously. "I haven't been entirely honest with you."

"I mean…" Anna laughed awkwardly. "I've only been here for three weeks. I didn't really expect you to be."

Despite her light tone, she couldn't shake the pit that was forming in her stomach.

"Yeah, but it's been eating away at me," Hiccup admitted.

"Okay." Anna nodded, expression turning serious.

"So…the truth is…I didn't actually _leave_ Berk. As in, I didn't just pack my bags and steal quietly away one night to keep everyone safe. It was a lot less noble than that."

Her eyes widened. "What happened?" she asked quietly.

"Well, back when I was fifteen…as soon as I attacked that dragon, as soon as he bit me…I started transforming. Right then and there. Grew claws, started growing bigger and getting scales, the whole deal. So, naturally, I ran…tried to find someplace to hide until I figured out what the hell I was going to do. And I was close, _really_ close, to getting behind this big hut and being conveniently out of the way when who should see me but Snoutlout, the kid who'd picked on me since I was little."

He took a deep breath, his voice starting to shake. "He saw me, and some other villagers saw me, and all of the sudden…it wasn't about the dragons anymore. It was about the monstrous kid slowly turning into one, right where everyone could see.

"They came at me with all the spears and swords that they had been using to fight off the dragons, screaming that I was an abomination. I begged for help, but they all looked at me and saw just another killer dragon. Never mind that it was part human. Every last person in that village came after me, started chasing me out, even…even my own dad. And Astrid, she…she was at the front of the line."

"Oh." Anna's eyes widened with a sudden understanding. "_Oh._"

"I don't know why I was surprised that they turned on me so quickly," he muttered, voice taking on a bitter tone. "They always hated me. But to see them want to kill me _just like that_…"

He seemed to crumple, hunching over with his arms hugging his knees tightly. "Maybe they were trying to protect themselves…keep…keep _whatever_ they thought I had from spreading. Whatever curse, whatever weird disease, what have you. Thought I might give it to them if they kept me around, I guess. No one in Berk…"

He scoffed, letting out a small laugh that seemed to tremble unevenly through the darkness. Almost as if it was brushing over something much more broken, trying to cover it up.

"Well, no one in Berk wants anything to do with dragons, let alone to…well, _be_ one. Or even be associated with, ah…a dragon who used to be…_not_ a dragon. But I'll never forget the way they looked at me…like I was…I was…"

His voice cracked again, and Anna saw from the glistening reflection of the firelight on his face that he was crying.

"…like I was a _demon!_" he choked out. "They…they kept chasing me out into the woods until I had transformed all the way, and I was able to use my wings to fly away. Even when I figured out how to turn back, I could never go back. I could never face them again."

He buried his face in his knees, and his body started to heave with soft sobs. Dinner long forgotten, Anna set her stick of meat down and rapidly crawled around the fire, pressing herself up against Hiccup and wrapping her arms around him as tightly as they could go. Slowly, he unlatched his arms from his knees and let his legs slide down, allowing her to crawl up into his lap and pull him even closer to him.

"Hiccup, I'm so sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry you had to endure all that. And I'm so, so sorry that they treated you like that. I know I'll never understand how it felt, but…I want to do anything I can to help."

He pulled her even closer to him, his sobs growing progressively heavier. It was a couple minutes before the worst of his crying bout was over, and gradually the tears stopped coming.

"I'm sorry," he sniffed finally, wiping his nose on his arm. "Sorry you had to see me like that."

"Are you kidding?" Anna snorted, smirking. "Did you _see_ me earlier today?"

His lips curved up into the beginnings of a smile. "That's the first time I've told anyone about it since it happened," he explained. "I guess I didn't think I'd get that upset talking about it."

"It makes sense to be upset," Anna said emphatically. "It sounds awful."

"Ah, well." He waved a hand dismissively, grinning. "All water under the bridge, I guess. I've made a new life for myself out here, and it suits me just fine. _Anyways._" His expression grew serious. "The reason I told you is because I want you to know that you're not the only one who feels like people see you as a monster. You're not the only one who feels like you're dangerous without wanting to be. And whatever you're going through, you never have to feel alone."

Anna smiled gratefully, although the sympathy she felt for the boy was still throbbing through her.

"Thank you," she said. "But you had it worse."

Hiccup shrugged. "I got chased by a bloodthirsty mob, you got chased by a bloodthirsty mob, what's the difference?"

"Yeah, but you've been…" Anna fiddled with a piece of hair, trying to calculate the exact time Hiccup had been living in the forest. If he had been fifteen when he first got turned, and Anna was one year younger than him and was now nineteen…that was five years. He was twenty now.

"You've been on your own so long," she murmured. "Completely isolated, out in the woods alone…I don't think I could have handled it for more than a month without going crazy! But you've been out there all this time, toughing it out and pushing through, no matter what the world thinks of you. You're so…so _strong_."

Hiccup snorted derisively. "Not strong, just hard to get rid of."

"Well, they could mean the same thing," Anna said, although she couldn't help but chuckle a bit. "I still think you're really brave," she added. "You've been through so much, and you're still up and kicking enough to crack jokes and teach people how not to burn forests down!" She let out an awkward laugh.

His gaze met hers for just a little too long, and Anna felt her cheeks grow hot.

"You're strange, you know," he said suddenly.

Anna blinked. "How so?"

"Well…most people just look at me, and as soon as they see the scales or the spikes or the creepy reptile eyes, all they can ever see me as is some sort of…unpredictable freak of nature. This scary abomination that shouldn't exist in any stretch of reality. But you just looked at me and saw another person."

Anna shrugged, her body beginning to burn with embarrassment. "Well, it's not really my place to judge. You know…given the whole fire…thing."

"Yeah, but…you never seemed scared of me at all. Or even anxious around me."

She smiled softly. "I thought a lot of things about that little kid reading his dragon book and drawing pictures of pretty girls in it, but 'he's got psychotic murderous beast tendencies' wasn't one of them. And people don't really change that much, at the end of the day."

He raised an eyebrow skeptically. "You could tell all that just by looking at a little kid?"

"Sure. You didn't seem like a bad person then, and you don't now either. Call it intuition."

She started to reach out a hand to touch his cheek, but thought better of it.

"I trust you, Hiccup," she said softly. "You need to trust yourself."

"I could say the same for you," he said, meeting her gaze evenly.

They stayed like that for several seconds, Anna perched on Hiccup's lap, blue eyes locked with green. At last Hiccup broke the gaze, looking away and awkwardly clearing his throat.

"Anyway! Dinner."

"Oh! Right! Dinner!"

Anna quickly scooted off of his lap, suddenly acutely aware of how far she was into his personal space. Hurriedly she made her way back around the fire and snatched up her meatstick, beginning to nibble with determination.

She stopped mid-chew to watch Hiccup picking at his meal just as apprehensively. His eyes were fixed on the ground in front of him, purposely avoiding hers. He had hunched himself into a ball again, as if trying to physically hold in any other secrets he might have.

"Hiccup?" she said nervously.

"Hm?" His head didn't move, likely terrified of revealing anything else personal merely by looking at her.

"I'm glad you told me."

He finally spared her a glance, his mouth forming the smallest of smiles.

"I'm glad I was able to tell someone."

* * *

**It is now officially the beginning of REAL SADBOI HOURS, which will commence immediately and last for the remaining duration of this fanfic! Hey, listen, I DID warn you…this story ain't a walk in the park XD**  
**You FOOLS! You thought the rest of Anna's training was going to go WELL? No, that would make everyone far too happy and not nearly angsty enough, and we can't have that!**  
**God DAMMIT Anna you had ONE job and that was to NOT light the forest on fire you big dummy**  
**Fun fact: In the first draft of this story, I had Hiccup be able to essentially shift in and out of full dragon form completely at will just kind of whenever. I ultimately ended up scrapping this, and having him only really undergo partial transformations in front of Anna for a couple reasons: 1) He's legit just super uncomfortable both transforming into and being in full dragon form in front of Anna, for reasons that he's already touched on a bit but I'll get more into later and 2) I feel like it makes sense for full transformations to take a considerable amount of energy both ways, and you can't just kinda snap in and out of dragon form whenever you feel like, especially since it takes a while for Hiccup to gather up the strength to turn back after morning hunting and whatnot. So I settled for something arguably creepier: Partially-dragon, teeming-with-body-horror Hiccup at random points! Hooray!**  
**I have a personal headcanon that Hiccup is like…one of the only people who can fully ground Anna and calm her down when she's hardcore panicking or freaking out about something. Like he has kind of a 6th sense about what exactly he should say to given enough emotional support to help her relax and dispel some of the fear while keeping her solidly grounded in reality at the same time. I feel like when Anna's cheerful, optimistic façade finally drops away and she starts spiraling and hardcore panicking, it's actually really hard to get her to see sense because she's already too far gone…but Hiccup's found a way to do it, the madman!**  
**Oho, guess what time it is? Are you guessing TRAGIC BACKSTORY TIME? You would be correct!**  
**Nowwww before YOU come at me with pitchforks like "But Stoick the Vast would never!" my question to you is…wouldn't he though? I mean, this IS pre-Character Development HTTYD 1 Stoick, who, if I remember correctly, was like…actually a pretty big tool. Suuure, HTTYD 3 kinda tried to retcon that he Wasn't Actually That Bad when Hiccup was a kid, but I don't tooootally buy that tbh. I mean…he literally disowned Hiccup like halfway through the first movie? Yeah, yeah, I know he said sorry, but…still. Damn, if the guy is willing to disown his kid for just wanting to give dragons a chance and not just like…murder them on-sight, then I'd hate to think what he would do if his kid started like…actually becoming a dragon. I've seen a number of different interpretations of this in HTTYD fanfic, I just decided to choose the most…pessimistic take *evil laughter***  
**In fairness, if you WANT to give the Berkians the benefit of the doubt here, the most sympathetic interpretation I suppose would be that they were treating random dragon-transforming like a zombie virus—they were under the impression it was gonna completely destroy Hiccup's mind anyways, and once the full transformation was complete, his dragonified self's only instinctual priority would be to attack people and spread it. Orrrrrr maybe they're just assholes. Up to you! Either way, I kinda feel like Hiccup's tribe pre-HTTYD 1 would've like…jumped at an opportunity to drive him out, unfortunately :(**  
**Mannnn I'm so sadistic, I really AM having too much fun imagining the ways Hiccup's life could have gone to shit if he'd never shot down Toothless and roundaboutedly earned the village's respect by taming a dragon. Poor kid would've just like…continued to not really be liked or respected by anyone, including (to some extent) his own dad, and not really have any friends :/**  
**Tfw when you randomly turn into a dragon and your crush tries to murder you WHAT A MOOD AMIRITE**  
**Also the lovely Anonymoose requested Hiccup and Anna bonding over shared trauma, and I was happy to deliver! Here you are, with Anna sitting on homeboy's lap, no less! Also AHAHA I FUCKIN LOVE THEM IT TAKES THEM JUST A LIL TOO LONG TO REALIZE SITTING ON YOUR TOTALLY PLATONIC FRIEND'S LAP AND STARING DEEP INTO THEIR EYES IS NOT VERY PLATONIC**  
**Okay I'll shut up now I'm sorry I just had a lot to say about this chapter oof**  
**(In other news, I recently got a tumblr that I dump Hiccanna moodboards and other Hiccanna content on, if anyone is interested! It's called Hiccanna-Tidbits! Give me a like and a follow on there if you can, so my stuff will finally pop up on the Hiccanna tag and I can finally overload the Hiccanna tag, just as I've always dreamed!)**


	11. Chapter 10 - Clandestine

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

Anna effortlessly brushed pelt after pelt aside, shuffling determinedly through Hiccup's fur pile. He seemed to store such a wide variety of odds and ends in there—an unnecessarily large array of carving knives, a few masks, and a small water-filtering device, to name a few—that at this point if Anna came across Ivan V, 13th czar of Russia, she couldn't say she would be surprised.

It felt a bit like snooping, going through Hiccup's belongings mound at length, but Anna had to admit she was curious. And curiosity—or perhaps boredom—had gotten the better of her.

Her hand fell on something thin yet soft and she pulled on it, expecting it to be nothing more than some of Hiccup's clothes. As it slipped out of the fur pile, she was suddenly overtaken with confusion.

Instead of being a simple shirt or pants, it was a long, black cloak, seeming to be made of a fabric not nearly thick enough to keep anyone warm from the cold. It was clearly meant to be worn over something else.

_What's it for?_ she wondered. Besides making you look exceedingly creepy and like some sort of Grim Reaper wannabe, the cloak didn't seem to have much point.

The crunch of paws on the snow outside caused her to jump, rapidly shoving the furs, cloak, and other items back into something that vaguely resembled an orderly pile.

In a ritual that had become all too familiar, the black dragon stepped into the cave, dragging a hefty piece of prey. Today, it happened to be a reindeer.

Anna tried not to think about Sven.

The dragon set the reindeer down without looking at her, and slipped silently out of the cave. Anna selected the sharpest carving knife she could find. She wasn't always awake when Hiccup brought their breakfast in, but when she was, she tried to help by starting the skinning before he got back. He had been more than happy to teach her.

He seemed to much prefer that she do it, she had noticed.

Sighing, she crawled across to the furry fallen deer and set to work.

* * *

"You haven't eaten much."

Anna shot Hiccup a concerned look. He was leaning up against the cave wall, empty meatstick pushed out in front of him. He had picked and scraped at the one stick, just barely managing to clear it by the time Anna had scarfed down three helpings. Now he had apparently decided he was done, drumming his fingers absentmindedly on the cave floor and waiting for her to finish.

"I wasn't that hungry," he said, shrugging.

She gave him a puzzled look. "But you were hunting all morning! Aren't you kind of worn out from that?"

"Eh." He shrugged again. "Doesn't work too much of an appetite, honestly."

"Hey, no need to starve yourself," she teased.

"The meat's mostly for you. I don't need to eat all that much."

Come to think of it, she _was_ the one who ended up clearing most of the meat he brought in. She hadn't paid much mind until now, but Hiccup had never been a big eater.

It was kind of odd, considering his condition.

"But…if your stomach gets bigger as a dragon, don't you need to eat _more?_" she ventured, helping herself to another stick of venison.

"Of course not," he said, his voice growing a slight edge. He seemed slightly insulted by the question.

"Sorry. Um…sorry," she quickly backtracked. "I guess it doesn't work like that. I was just wondering why you didn't eat much. You don't have to tell me," she added.

Hiccup sighed, looking at her with a defeated expression.

"Well, I really don't like eating meat," he admitted.

"You don't?" Anna paused mid-chew to eye him in surprise.

"No." He shook his head. "I mean…back in Berk, I never really thought about it. My dad would give me a leg of mutton, I would eat it. It was just food. But actually out hunting for myself and having to kill things…" He shuddered.

"They get this…this look of helpless terror in their eyes right before I kill them. I hate seeing that…being the one to do that to something. And eating something I used to see alive…it makes me kind of sick." He sucked in his breath. "I hate killing. That's why I try to hunt as little as I can. I mean, I have to to survive, especially with all the plants dying this time of year, but I've gotten used to getting by on not very much meat."

"Oh." Anna nodded, eyes filling with sudden understanding. "I'm so sorry you have to…have to do that."

"Ah." He shrugged, forcing a smile. "I'm pretty used to it. It's just life."

"Well, you definitely don't have to eat any more. I'll finish it off so it doesn't go to waste."

She ate the last of the meatstick and reached for the next, watching Hiccup sadly as he started to fiddle with his own empty stick.

_I wish there was some way to get him something else to eat._

With a jolt, Anna suddenly remembered something. Glancing over at the fur pile, an idea slowly began to form.

"Hey Hiccup…you know what today is?"

He raised an eyebrow at her. "I haven't kept track of the days of the week in 3 years, if that's what you're insinuating."

"No, I just remembered," she said. "It's November 15th. It's Arendelle's Winter Market!"

The Winter Market was, for all intents and purposes, Arendelle's last major market of the year before the long cold season set in. Everyone scrounged up whatever goods they had and sold them before they went bad in winter storage as the last of the harvest season came to a close.

Well…not that you _couldn't_ buy food after that. It was just trickier.

"Okay…" He looked at her skeptically, seeming completely at a loss as to where she was going with this.

"It's always super crowded," she explained. "No one really gives anyone buying stuff from there a second look. So I could just duck in there and get us some _real_ food to eat!" She started to stand up, and Hiccup followed.

"Whoa, whoa, wait. _Wait_ just a second," he snapped, giving her an incredulous look. "Great Odin's ghost, have you gone _completely_ off your rocker?! Have you conveniently forgotten the hordes of people back there who apparently want your head on a pike? I mean…you really think they're not going to recognize the _princess_?!"

"Well, see, I thought of that," she said, smirking. "That's why I'm going to wear…" She started to rapidly shuffle through the fur pile, searching for the feel of thin fabric.

"That's why I'm going to wear…uh…" She continued searching, still not having much luck.

"That's why I'm going to wear _this!_" She finally found the fabric and yanked out the black cloak, grinning triumphantly. "And also…uh…" She went back to searching.

"_This!_" After a few seconds, she pulled out a mask. It was one of the uglier ones, with a long nose and cheeks with hideous bright pink blush, but Anna waved it around anyway in order to prove her point.

Hiccup's annoyed expression faded, giving way to a mildly impressed one.

"Not bad," he conceded.

"No one will ever know it's me!" she said, sticking her chest out proudly. "And lucky for us, I had some money with me the day I got chased by that mob. Took it out in case I wanted to stop and buy something on the way back to the castle."

She went over to their pile of laundry and shuffled through it, finding the dress she had been wearing the day of the incident. Feeling through it, her hand fell on something hard and she pulled out a handful of gold coins.

"There it is! Dresses with pockets are the best."

"Isn't somebody going to recognize your voice?" Hiccup asked dubiously.

"Aw, come one!" Anna snorted. "Lots of people have voices that sound the same. They're not going to suspect anything. I promise," she added when he still looked uncertain.

Hiccup let out a long sigh. "Are you sure about this? It looks kind of weird, some person in a black cloak and a creepy mask walking around buying stuff. And I'd hate myself if something happened to you…"

"Don't you use these things to go into town anyway?" she asked, holding up the cloak.

He looked slightly stricken by the question, but nodded. "Well…sure, sometimes. It covers up the worst of my scales, and I can finish it off with a mask if something's wrong with my face. It's a nice way of seeing what's going on in civilization when you get tired of the forest. Not that I ever have any money to buy things and call attention to myself," he added.

"Have you tried moving in someplace and getting a job?" Anna asked.

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable. "Yeah, a few times…but I gave up after a while. No one tends to want me to work for them once they see me growing a tail, or something similar."

Anna regarded him sympathetically, but he seemed eager to change the subject.

"_Anyway._ Are you honestly sure no one will get suspicious?"

Anna shrugged. "I might turn a few heads, but I like I said, these markets are so crowded that no one really pays much attention to anyone else. And I've seen people there in cloaks before. It's not that unusual."

Hiccup let out another sigh, cracking a small smile. "Well…all right. I guess I _could_ go for some actual people food. Dragon food gets pretty old."

"I thought so," Anna replied beaming. "How long has it been?"

"Too long," he said dryly.

"Okay!" Anna effortlessly slipped the black cloak over her clothes, pulling the hood down briefly to fit the mask onto her face and slip the string over the back of her head. She started to bound out the door when Hiccup came up behind her, gently grabbing her arm.

"Anna, wait, just…" He took a deep breath. "For the love of the gods, _lie low_. Don't do anything that could get you noticed. It's going to be a disaster if people figure out who you are."

"I know," she replied evenly, giving him a reassuring smile that she soon after realized was completely concealed by the mask. "I'll be fine. I'll be back in a few hours, okay? Don't get into a bunch of trouble while I'm gone," she added teasingly.

"I'll try my best," he said, smirking. He rested his hand on her arm just a second longer before pulling it away.

As she strode out of the cave, she felt his concerned green eyes boring into her back, watching her until she was completely out of sight.

* * *

"Morning…uh…"

The seafood vendor looked over Anna, seeming to try and determine her gender. It was proving to be very difficult.

"Morning, ma'am," he said finally. Anna imagined her short stature is what gave her away. "What can I get you today?"

"Just some shrimp, please," she said cheerfully.

She wasn't sure if shrimp was a type of meat Hiccup didn't like eating—shrimp didn't seem very sentient, after all—but in any case, she had a craving for it herself.

"Cooked?" the vendor asked. Anna nodded. _Save us some trouble._

He scooped up a couple massive handfuls of shrimp from a bucket by his feet and tossed them onto a grill with a loud sizzle.

"Interesting mask you've got there," he commented.

Anna's stomach started to squirm, and she instantly regretted letting the vendor cook the shrimp.

"Oh…yeah…uh…I'm part of a traveling theatre troupe!" she improvised quickly. _Nice, Anna!_ she praised herself briefly. _Good save!_

Deciding to keep running with the idea, she let out an embarrassed laugh. "Our director was like 'go to the market as your character!' As, you know, a training exercise. We're supposed to stay in-character at all times."

The vendor raised his eyebrows. "Who are you supposed to be?"

"Uh…" She shuffled her feet uncomfortably for a second. "…the Grim Reaper."

He grabbed a spatula and flipped the shrimp roughly over before giving her a somewhat critical look. "Where's your scythe?"

"Oh…uh…" _Shit, I really did not think this through._ "My director was worried if I carried my prop around, the guards would actually come after me. Some of the props look so real!" She forced a laugh again.

"Hm." The seafood vendor grunted, still seeming displeased.

"You need to work on your characterization," he said gruffly. "I don't think the Grim Reaper would be nearly as cheerful. Or…awkward."

Despite the utter fallacy of her life as a traveling actress, Anna couldn't help but sag a bit at the comment.

"Yeah," she said, forcing a laugh. "My director keeps telling me the same thing."

"You'd do well to listen to him," he grunted, muttering "amateurs!" under his breath as he used a knife to scrape the shrimp off of the grill and into a cloth. As he wrapped up the cloth and tied the ends, Anna slid him a couple of coins.

"Come see our show!" she said, giving him a friendly wave as she took the cloth and scampered away. Luckily he didn't try to gather any details on the imaginary show, but instead grumbled about how "no one knows how to build a good character these days."

She slipped the tied cloth into the picnic basket she had bought, already quite heavy with several apples, a pound of cranberries, an exotic-looking cheese wheel, a large quiche, a bottle of milk, and an impressive selection of Belgian chocolate. Sliding the basket onto her arm, she got in line for a bread vendor who was incredibly busy, but whose cart smelled like nothing short of euphoria itself.

Once she got to the front, the vendor seemed to do a double take at her mask, but didn't comment. "What can I get for you today?"

"Two baguettes, please!"

The vendor started, a look of alarm flashing across his face. "You sound like the princess!"

Anna whole body stiffened, her blood freezing into ice. Nevertheless, she forced a laugh.

"Oh, uh…yeah, I've been getting that all day! My director says I should use the fact that we're voice twins to talk her into coming to our show. See, I'm in a traveling theater troupe and we were all supposed to go to the market as our characters as an acting exercise—"

The vendor cut her off, his eyes widening in surprise. "Didn't you hear, though? The princess is gone!"

_Shit, didn't think of that._ Anna wanted to smack herself.

"Oh? What happened?" She did her very best to feign surprise.

"She went ballistic the other day, and one of the palace servants revealed she was actually an evil enchantress!" the vendor explained, fetching two thick loaves of bread. "The whole kingdom's still in shock from it. She'd probably have destroyed the kingdom with her magic fire if a brave group of souls hadn't had the courage to drive her out before she gained full control over whatever hellfire she was spurting out."

Anna hoped that the black cloak hid her shaking.

"Oh no," she whispered. "My uh…my troupe and I have only been here a couple days, so we didn't know. That sounds terrifying! Is everyone all right?"

"Yes, no one was hurt, thank god," the vendor huffed, handing her her bread. "Mind you, though, it was a close call. You and your troupe should all watch your backs while you're here. No one knows where she ran off to."

"I'll make sure we do," Anna answered seriously. "I'm glad no one was hurt."

As she slipped the baguettes into her basket, a sudden thought occurred to her.

"Wait. If the princess is gone, then who's on the throne?"

The vendor opened his mouth to answer when Anna was abruptly shouldered out of the way by a hefty woman with a sagging chin and a scowl etched deep into her face, bulky glittering handbag hanging off of her arm. "Yer holding up the line!" she growled.

The vendor shot Anna an apologetic look as she was nudged away. The big woman started to loudly give her order as the vendor turned his attention to her, and Anna's opportunity was gone.

_So who took over after I left?_

Shrugging, Anna started back through the marketplace to the path that led to the forest. Her basket had grown so heavy that if she added much more food, it would threaten to pull her arm off.

_Wait._

A sudden image crossed her mind as she reached the end of the marketplace. Something sitting neatly at her bedside, as familiar a sight to her when she woke up in the morning as her bedside lamp and tall, triangular window.

She glanced past the bustling market and sharp-roofed buildings to the towering castle across the water. After a moment's hesitation, she started toward it.

_I won't be long._

Keeping her head down and her cloak pulled as far down over her mask as she could, Anna shuffled back through the marketplace and slinked across the castle bridge. The gates open as usual, she crept into the courtyard and hastily checked around for anyone before making a run for the castle door and quickly shutting herself inside.

Sliding behind a statue as a couple of guards walked by, Anna smirked to herself. Very helpful to remember when the front guards' lunch breaks were, she thought.

The good thing about having spent so many of the lonely hours of her childhood exploring every last chamber and learning every last detail of the mazing hallways of the castle is that Anna knew exactly what statues she could safely hide behind and exactly what rooms she could slip into unnoticed. Not that that made her heart pound any less when she heard someone approaching and had to use her cloak to melt away into the shadows, or slip into the nearest nook or cranny.

The basket, she found, was the hardest part to sneak around, being a bulky nuisance to conceal under her cloak. Nonetheless, she was able to slip through a series of passageways and up the flight of stairs with little incident and only a couple of close calls.

At last, Anna came to her bedroom door. Casting a cautious glance either way and seeing no one, she hastily cracked open the door and weaseled through, quietly closing it behind her.

She let out a long breath. Looking around, she felt herself overcome with a strange feeling. It was odd, being back in a place that had been so familiar to her all her life after being gone for so long. Everything seemed almost alien—the painted closet doors, the tall window, even the lavish bed that, until recently, she had spent half of her entire life asleep in.

She briefly wondered how Hiccup would feel, standing in a bedroom like this again.

Her gaze fell on a leather-bound journal on her bedside table, sealed with a dark pink ribbon. It was a birthday gift from Gerda a couple years ago. She had written in it quite a bit at first, but after she and her sister had grown back together, she had had little reason to.

Anna picked it up, untying the ribbon and thumbing through the tiny portion of the journal she had written in. Plenty of empty pages in the back to draw.

Grinning, she opened the picnic basket and slipped it inside, along with several of the pens and pencils she kept beside it (she always liked having a large variety of writing utensils to choose from). Opening her drawer, she grabbed her purse and transferred all the change she could find in it to the basket.

If she wanted to get Hiccup "real" food on any sort of regular basis, she couldn't very well have all her money sitting upstairs in her room. She was heading for the door when her eyes strayed to a picture on the wall.

It wasn't anything new, having been hung above her dresser for a solid 8 months. In fact, she had become accustomed to seeing it across the room as soon as she woke up in the morning. However, seeing it now sent a jolting realization through her.

There she was, sitting on Sven, next to her Kristoff, Olaf, and…

_Elsa._

She stumbled backwards, blinking in shock. How could she have forgotten?

_Elsa could be back._

She had to be, right? It had been three and a half weeks. What kind of diplomatic negotiations took nearly a month?

_Never mind the fact that she hasn't come looking for me yet…_

Anna shook the thought from her head. Who knew what Victoria could have told Elsa about her disappearance?

_If Elsa's back, everything will be okay. She'll fix all this and get people to like me again and help me with my powers and then Hiccup can come live in the castle with us and can eat as much real actual people food as he wants and she can get people here to see Hiccup's not evil or scary or anything and then people will like him and he won't be sad or lonely anymore and—_

Her thoughts were racing almost as fast as her feet, which were now taking her down corridors and around corners to the throne room as quick as they could go.

When she finally burst into the throne room, she could feel her entire world crumble out from under her. It was as if someone had slipped an enormous metal magnet around her neck and fastened it there, having no intention of moving it.

Sprawled across the throne in the most undignified way possible was Victoria, her dark hair hanging in a glossy curtain around her head and her violet eyes fixed on a ruby-studded gold tiara that she was boredly twirling in her hands. A tiara that, Anna realized with a sinking feeling, had once belonged to her.

Victoria's bored expression turned to confusion as her gaze went from the tiara to the figure standing dramatically in the doorway.

"Who the hell are _you?_" she snapped. "And what are you doing in my castle?"

Anna bristled furiously. Before she could think better of it, she stormed toward Victoria, huffing with rage.

"_Your_ castle?" she snarled. "Where's Elsa?"

A look that was almost stunned flashed across Victoria's face, but it was quickly replaced by a derisive sneer.

"Look, I don't know who the hell you are or how you got into the castle, but Her Majesty Queen Elsa is off on important diplomatic business. It would seem the negotiations she was summoned to down south are much more complicated than was originally suspected, so she will be gone indefinitely."

Anna's face fell slightly before hardening back into a furious scowl. "What…that's…no queen is gone that long! You're lying!" She took another step toward the throne. "What have you done with her?" she hissed.

Anna expected the maidservant to crack a smug, gloating grin, or maybe look angry at being found out. Perhaps sneer at her if the accusation turned out not to be true. Instead, Victoria looked downright _insulted_.

"What—I would never—I haven't done a damn _thing!_" she spat. "I'm simply filling in for Queen Elsa while she's away. That's all."

"But why you?" Anna growled, struggling to keep her voice calm. "Why not…the princess? Why did they choose a maidservant to—"

How would a stranger in a cloak and mask know Victoria was a servant? Anna shut her mouth, fearing she had said too much.

Apparently she had. Victoria tensed, relaxed pose melting away as she sat up and started to loom over Anna. The redhead hastily backed away.

The next second Victoria had dived off of the throne, flying toward Anna with her hands outstretched. Wasting no time contemplating the lady-in-waiting's motives, Anna sprinted toward the nearest exit. Unfortunately Victoria was faster, grabbing her and slamming her up against the wall just as she was about to reach the door.

Victoria's hands moved with disturbing precision, reaching into Anna's hood and ripping her mask off before the princess of Arendelle could process what was happening.

"I knew it," she whispered, smirking triumphantly. "You stupid bitch. Did you really think I wouldn't recognize your voice?"

Her fingers fastened around Anna's gloved hands tighter than shackles, knocking the picnic basket out of her hands and thrusting her wrists forcefully up above her head. Anna let out a cry of pain as her hands made hard contact with the wooden wall behind her.

"Who let _you_ on the throne?" Anna fumed, not even bothering to hide her contempt anymore.

"Oh, Anna…" Victoria clicked her tongue. "Don't you know? The people of Arendelle hardly seem too choosy about who rules them on the many occasions where their queen and princess have run off and left them. After all, they barely put up a fuss when a random prince from Nowheresville was left in charge when you went running after Elsa up the North Mountain. Isn't that right?"

Anna made a face, cringing at the memory. Nonetheless, she held Victoria's gaze with a scowl.

"That was different," she hissed. "You…you're not even royalty! You're just some random nobody who popped out of nowhere and started working in the castle. Why would anyone let you be this…" Anna's pinned hands squirmed around in an attempt to gesture wildly. "This _surrogate queen?_ It doesn't make any sense!"

"Oh, _royalty!_" Victoria laughed disdainfully. "Is _that_ what this is about, Anna dear? Well, no one in this whole wretched kingdom seemed to so much as bat an eyelid when they were headed toward having a lowly _ice harvester_ as their next prince. I don't think you realize how much these people don't give a _damn_ about who's sitting on their throne. A power vacuum opens up, and _someone_ needs to fill it. Besides…" Her mouth widened into a large smirk. "This kingdom thinks I'm a _hero_, Anna! I'm the one who drove the demon princess and her hellfire away and saved the town, after all. Who else would they put in charge of them?"

As Anna looked over Victoria's searing eyes and her smug, mocking grin, she suddenly realized that this had been the maidservant's plan all along. Get her to turn on herself, drive her out, fill in the hole left behind. Despite the sinking feeling in her chest, she smirked right back.

"You think you're so clever, but there's one thing you didn't think of. What are you going to do when Elsa gets back?"

To her dismay, Victoria's pleased expression didn't falter in the slightest. "That isn't for _you_ to worry about, now is it? Your slaughtered body will be rotting in the forest by then." She gave Anna the same smug, apologetic smile that she had seen so many times, the smile that could only be remedied with a fist to the face.

Anna thrashed furiously against Victoria's hold. "If you do anything to her…"

Victoria snorted. "What are you going to do? Set me on fire? Make your already-resentful subjects hate you even more?"

"I'll _ruin_ you!" she spat, struggling even harder.

Victoria curled her lip. "I'd like to see you try." She inspected Anna as she tried to wriggle free in the same manner as a scientist looking over a particularly interesting specimen.

"I must say, though, this _is_ a plot twist," she said. "I hardly thought I'd be seeing you here alive any time soon. I was sure the elements or that enormous dragon were going to dispose of you."

_Hiccup?_ Anna barely held back a laugh. Victoria thought _Hiccup_ was going to eat her?

"But I suppose…" Her voice dropped, a menacing smile crawling across her face. "If nature won't kill you, I'll have to do all the dirty work myself."

Anna's eyes widened. "You wouldn't," she breathed. "Not in here…"

"Wouldn't I?" Victoria's smile widened. "No one's going to come running in to save you. All the servants you grew up with think you're a bloodthirsty witch now, always hiding behind a baby face so no one suspected anything. It's amazing what bending the truth a little can do!"

"You little—"

Anna kept glaring daggers at Victoria, her struggling intensifying. Her heart started to pound. It was beyond her how Victoria was planning on murdering her, but it couldn't be pretty.

Victoria leaned in until she was right next to Anna's ear.

"Even if you did get out Anna, no one would believe you. No one would take your side. When they come in here and see you lying cut up on the ground, they're going to flock around the valiant hero who saved them all from you. Three cheers, the fire witch is dead!"

_Fire…_

A sudden idea occurred to Anna.

_No, shit. Why did I not think to try this before? Too overrun with panic, I guess…_

She closed her eyes, letting all the heat in her body flood to her hands. Although her fingertips burned, nothing penetrated the thick silk gloves. She tried for several seconds with no success.

_Damn, no wonder Elsa used these things. Nothing can get through them!_

She looked down, and another idea started to form. Balancing herself against the wall and lifting a leg up, she sent her foot crashing right into Victoria's groin.

Victoria let out a screech of pain, loosening her grip on Anna just enough for her to pry free. As Victoria clutched at her nether regions, Anna quickly snatched the picnic basket off of the ground and rammed it against the brunette's head with as much force as she could muster.

The lady-in-waiting let out a surprised yelp, staring at Anna in brief shock before her eyes rolled back in her head and she collapsed onto the ground. Not hesitating to celebrate her relatively easy victory, Anna streaked toward the door.

All through the castle and out into the market, she walked quickly and kept her head low, pulling her hood as far down as she could to conceal her face. Her feet moved swiftly, but she was careful not to make it quite swift enough to arouse any suspicion. Although she had a few close calls with guards in the castle and was sure she got a few leering looks in the market, no one stopped her as she briskly made her way through the kingdom and onto the back roads.

She didn't let herself slow down until she reached the edge of the woods.

* * *

"I'm back!"

Anna sauntered into the cave, although her confident posture was hurt somewhat by the incredibly heavy picnic basket continually threatening to remove her arm. Despite the ever-growing pain in her fingers and the constant slump of her entire body toward the cave floor, she did her best to put on a cheery smile.

"You are?" Hiccup looked up from where he had been absentmindedly fiddling with a stick on the floor, green eyes fixing eagerly on the heavy basket. "Did you—"

"YES!" Before he could finish, she pounded the basket down with a heavy thump and pulled out a blanket. Tossing aside the now-unneeded mask nestled in the top of the basket, Anna spread the blanket over the cave floor and started to set the food items down on it one-by-one. "So we've got some freshly-picked apples, some nice cranberries—right in season, you know!—a full quiche, this fancy-looking cheese which had some long and hard-to-pronounce name that I've already completely forgotten, some shrimp—I don't know if you want those because it's meat but I thought you might feel less guilty eating that than a deer—some milk, some freshly-baked baguettes, aaaaaanddddd…"

She drew out the last word, grinning like an idiot.

"CHOCOLATE!" She scooped up all of the Belgian chocolates and thrust them up into the air, sending them raining down all across the picnic blanket (and some outside of it, which Anna hastily snatched up and put onto the blanket before god-knows-what forest germs got on them).

"Oh my gods…" Hiccup was looking at the feast like it was the single most astonishing phenomenon he had ever laid eyes on. "I just…this is just…"

Anna's grin widened. "_That's_ not even the best part."

She reached into the picnic basket and pulled out the leather-bound journal, pencils and pens piled on top, and handed it to Hiccup. "This is for you."

"Is this…" He ran his fingers over the binding, eyes growing wider and wider in disbelief as he began to thumb through the pages. She watches as he rapidly scanned the blank pages, a slow smile creeping onto his face.

"Now you can have somewhere to draw all you want!" she said, watching him eagerly with her legs folded under her and her hands on her knees.

After flipping excitedly through the entire end of the journal, he eventually got back to the beginning. He paused to read a page, his expression slowly shifting to confusion and then a frown. Anna snatched the journal away, her entire face burning in embarrassment.

"Hey, don't read those!"

"Where did you get this?" he asked suddenly.

Anna fidgeted uncomfortably, suddenly aware that he would not be too pleased with the answer.

"It's…mine," she explained slowly. "I snuck up to my room and—"

He gave her an incredulous look. "You went into the _castle_?!" he huffed. "What—why would you _do_ that?"

"Oh, I wasn't in there very long, just long enough to get—"

He spluttered wildly, glaring at her. "Great Odin's ghost, have you lost your mind?" he hissed. "What happened to 'lying low?'"

"I _was_ lying low!" she argued. "I just snuck in there long enough to get the journal, and then I left!"

_Best not to mention the bit with Victoria for now._

"You can't just—" He started to gesture wildly. "You can't just _gallivant in_ where the person who wants you the most dead is just hanging out. Not to mention that's where she'll be expecting you to come back."

Anna didn't say anything.

"Just…" he let out an exasperated sigh. "Good gods, you can't call attention to yourself like that! You really think some mysterious figure sneaking through the castle and stealing the princess's stuff isn't going to seem suspicious _at all?_ I mean, what if someone had seen you?"

Anna awkwardly chewed on her lip in response.

"Oh…oh no." His eyes widened in horror. "Someone _did_ see you."

"I…thought Elsa might be back by now, so I went to check the throne room, but Victoria was in there, and she…uh…recognized my voice…and…"

He responded by looking even more horrified, hands tensing and pressing hard into the ground behind him. "Oh gods…what happened?"

"Well, she made some vague threats and tried to grapple me against the wall, but I smashed her over the head with this thing and knocked her out!" Anna gestured at the picnic basket, grinning in an attempt to diffuse the tension. "She didn't stand a chance against me!"

Hiccup didn't look as impressed as she hoped. "Oh gods," he muttered. He looked away, face etched with worry. "She knows you're alive now."

"Yeah, but it doesn't matter," Anna said quickly. "She'll probably just leave me to the elements again."

"Will she, though?" he snapped, reeling back on her with his eyes flashing. "_Clearly_ that didn't work out very well for her last time. I doubt she'd let you off that easy, if what I heard her saying that night we met is anything to go off of."

Anna hugged herself and looked down, realizing he probably had a point.

_If nature won't kill you, I'll have to do all the dirty work myself._

Hiccup muttered angrily to himself, giving her an icy look. "Anna, just…this lady is completely off her rocker, and now she's gonna come after you!"

"But if she does…I mean…we can take her right?" Anna smiled weakly.

He spluttered a bit before finding the words he wanted. "Well, I don't know, maybe, but that's not the point," he huffed. "Just…why would you _do_ that? In what alternate reality is it a good idea to try and sneak into a _heavily-armed castle_ in a suspicious-looking disguise and hope you can just waltz in, casually steal some stuff, and slip out without anyone noticing? I mean oh, what could _possibly_ go wrong in that scenario? Maybe _literally everything?_"

Anna was suddenly overcome with annoyance, stung by his sharp tone.

"Well, I'm sorry, okay?!" she snapped. "I was doing it for you, you know! I just wanted you to have something to draw in!"

"Just…" He put his hands on his head, letting out a long, exasperate groan. "No, I don't want you taking stupid risks for me! _Especially_ not for me. Do you know how much I would hate myself if you got hurt doing something for me? No, just…"

He glared at her intently, fingers digging into the rocky ground. "I don't care why you're doing it, you can't just go around doing reckless stuff like that. You're going to get yourself killed, Anna!"

She heard a cracking sound, and realized with a jolt that scales were rapidly climbing up his arms, his fingernails starting to elongate into claws and his fingers growing long and jagged. Black crawled across his face as he continued to glower at her, one of his pupils narrowing into a slit.

Anna shrunk away, her eyes widening. "Hiccup…you're…"

When he had mentioned to her that his transformations acted up when he got angry, she had envisioned him exploding into dragon form in a fit of rage, furious screams turning into deafening animalistic bellows as he morphed. For some reason it hadn't processed that Hiccup's quiet, steamy anger with hisses and glares and exasperated sighs would trigger it too.

As soon as he realized what was happening, his eyes widened in fear. He backed up against the cave wall, breathing hard.

"I'm sorry," he whimpered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, it's not your fault." She reached out a hand to touch him comfortingly, but he shrunk away. The spreading scales had slowed down, but not stopped completely.

"I didn't even think I was getting that mad," he admitted. "I just started getting so upset over the idea of you doing something to get yourself hurt, and then…"

He took several deep breaths until the scales halted, leaving only one of his eyes turned to a dragon eye.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

"No, _I'm_ sorry," Anna said. "You were right, anyway. It was really careless of me to go in there like that. And I…" She sighed. "I don't want you worrying about me, so I won't do something crazy like that again without at _least_ telling you first. So you can have a _shot_ at talking me out of it." She grinned mischievously.

He frowned. "Anna, this is serious. You run around that town and do stuff to get yourself noticed, someone's going to recognize you and sic a mob on you."

"_Fine_," Anna huffed. "I won't try getting anything else from the castle. Or go somewhere where people can recognize me. I just…" She glanced at the journal sadly. "I wanted to surprise you…"

His gaze softened and he picked up the journal again, seeming to shrink into himself and take the book with him as he did so.

"Thank you," he said softly. "I'm still not okay with you running all about People-who-want-to-kill-Anna Central to get stuff for me, but…thank you."

"I thought you might want more than just dirt to draw in," she said, laughing nervously.

The slightest smile ghosted over Hiccup's face. "Did you actually knock her over the head with a picnic basket?"

Anna beamed. "Yep! One big smack right to the noggin, and she was out like a light."

Hiccup sniggered briefly before bursting out into full-fledged laughter. Anna inadvertently joined in, trying to add more details but laughing too hard to.

As soon as the laughter died down, he sighed and put a hand on her shoulder.

"Just…please don't ever scare me like that again."

"I won't," she said seriously. "I won't do anything else dangerous. I promise. Unless…uh…" She snickered. "You count, ya know, existing as dangerous, since I could burn myself."

He smirked. "I'll give you a pass on that one."

He started to page through the journal, smile growing broader and broader.

"This…this is amazing," he breathed. "I love it. _I love it!_"

He started muttering under his breath about all the things he was going to draw, sizing up each page like an architect making a blueprint. Anna sat on her legs and watched him, smiling fondly.

He was adorable.

_Wait, what?_

Her face grew hot.

_Where did _that_ come from?_

When he looked up at her, she hoped that her burning cheeks weren't showing in the form of an unwelcome blush.

"I can't imagine what I've done to deserve all this," he said, eyes flitting back and forth between the massive picnic feast and the journal.

"Well, you decided to take me up into a tree and stop a bunch of people from killing me, for a start," she said, grinning.

He laughed, shaking his head. "I mean, I didn't know that common human decency made me worthy of a feast fit for Thor himself, but I'm not complaining."

Anna rolled her eyes. "Stop it! I'm your friend, Hiccup, I'm allowed to do nice stuff for you."

He kept gazing at the food, still looking a bit starstruck. For a short while he was lost for words.

"Th—thank you," he stammered again finally. "I didn't think you'd do this much, but I'm really glad you did. You have no idea how much I'm looking forward to eating real food again."

"Let's start right now, then!"

She picked up a piece of chocolate off of the picnic blanket and grinned mischievously.

"Hey Hiccup…want some chocolate?"

He looked at her—or maybe it was the piece of chocolate, she wasn't sure—like she had all the stars in the sky.

"That…that sounds amazing."

* * *

**YOOOOO WELCOME BACK!**

**Y'all are in for a TREAT because this was honestly one of my absolute favorite chapters to write in the whole story! Like in the first plan/draft, Anna going into town to buy food was just supposed to be a means to an end to tempt her into going into the castle and running into Victoria and such, but then I was like "wait…I can have some fun with this" and thus the most DnD-esque disguise-and-infiltration plan ever was born XD Anna out here rolling nat 20s on her deceive checks and the townspeople of Arendelle crit-failing their insight checks XD**

**"BAH!" You scream. "THE TOWNSPEOPLE OF ARENDELLE WOULD NEVER BE DUMB ENOUGH TO FALL FOR THIS SCAM!" Ehhhhh, wouldn't they tho? I mean, as Victoria the Vamp astutely pointed out, Anna left a random prince in charge she'd just met the same day and they just went "aight" XD Besides, if basically every superhero ever can keep up a secret identity despite paper-thin disguises, then voices alone must not be enough to pin a person down XD**

**Since Hiccup didn't have the famous "I don't wanna kill a dragon" epiphany in this timeline, he instead had a "fuck it, I don't wanna kill ANYTHING" epiphany, which I'd like to think had a similar (if not MORE drastic) effect on him. I mean, let's be real—Hiccup may be snarky as all hell, but he's still secretly a softboi who loves animals and nature and connects better with animals than people half the time, which I wanted to preserve even in weredragon form XD In other words…*beats table with fists* VEGETARIAN HICCUP VEGETARIAN HICCUP VEGETARIAN HICCUP**

**(Or wannabe vegetarian Hiccup anyways!)**

**Also man do I LOVE writing Victoria's smug ass. She's a piece of shit, but damn, if she's not crafty as all hell. And before you say "How in the hell did Anna knock Victoria out with a picnic basket?" may I remind you this is the same woman who accidentally tossed a metal bust across the room and dislodged a whole-ass tree from the snow to smack a snow giant in the face? Her strength is NO JOKE she could definitely carry a pretty heavy picnic basket with little to no issue! And then ramming it into someone's head and using it to konk them out? With a little adrenaline and Rage Fuel, no problem!**

**HA, you thought just because Hiccanna is my OTP of OTPs I wasn't going hit them with some INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT? You thought their entire relationship was going to be fluff and happiness and rainbows and wholesome love? You FOOL you IDIOT you ABSOLUTE BUFFOON you—**

**Lol in all seriousness, I do think that if Hiccup and Anna were to fight over anything, it would be over Anna doing some impulsive dumb shit or otherwise putting herself in harm's way through general recklessness and Hiccup would just LOSE HIS SHIT (I mean…as much as a snarky, understated dude can lose his shit anyways) like "Oh my GOD you IDIOT you could have DIED I was so WORRIED you dumbass" and Anna, while appreciating the concern, naturally gets defensive over the implication that she can't be trusted to make her own choices, however stupid XD But hey, I aim for realism, not just romanticized fluff, so even the most compatible ships I feel like are going to have disagreements and conflict sometimes.**

**In other news, some irl friends and I started doing a superhero-themed RPG campaign and my character is LITERALLY just the lovechild of Fire!Anna and Weredragon!Hiccup in this fanfic XD The hilarious part is that only one of those friends knows because he knows I'm shameless Hiccanna trash, but the rest have NO IDEA and whenever I make subtle references to Hiccup and Anna being her parents the guy who's in on the meme has to keep from inexplicably laughing his ass off because he KNOWS XD The rest just have no clue and will probably never catch on to the fact that my "bubbly but also snarky and tech-savvy redheaded green-eyed weredragon girl" is in fact just an OC lovechild I made for one of my OTPs XD**

**Also, just another plea to check out my tumblr, Hiccanna-tidbits, for more Hiccanna content! Which…for some reason is not popping up on the tags page, so you'll have to go directly to my page to see it, apparently :( I mainly make Hiccanna moodboards—there are 4 posted so far and more on the way! Alas, maybe someday they'll show up on the Hiccanna tag.**

**See y'all next month! Shit's boutta get seriously dark and angsty in a hot sec so BRACE YOURSELVES**


	12. Chapter 11 - Control

**Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE PREVIEW PICTURE! IT BELONGS TO Kittykatpaws ON DEVIANTART! I also do not own any of the characters. All I own is the storyline.**

* * *

Anna kicked up a pile of dry leaves, shoulders tensed as she watched them spiral listlessly through the air. She was several paces ahead of Hiccup, leaving the brunette boy struggling to keep up as she walked briskly toward the lake.

"Anna…" He jogged up to stand beside her, panting. "Hey. Slow down, will you?"

"Well, it's almost noon and we haven't started yet," she pointed out. "We're kind of wasting daylight, don't you think?"

Hiccup gave her a puzzled look. "Since when do you care about wasting daylight?"

Anna shrugged. "I dunno. Just might as well get in as much training before dinner is all."

The beginnings of a smirk crawled over his lips. "You're not usually like this."

Her hand began to curl into a fist. "What, so _you're_ always the responsible one?" she snapped, feeling suddenly irritated.

He flinched a little, but his grin didn't falter. "Come on, _you?_ Getting up before 11 a.m.? What is this madness?"

"Well, sorry I want to be productive for once!" she huffed. "This is important, you know!"

Hiccup frowned, seemingly caught off-guard by her sharp tone. "Anna," he sighed. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," she said tightly.

Hiccup sighed, raising his eyebrows. "You're a terrible liar, Anna," he deadpanned. "It's clearly _not_ nothing."

"A terrible…?" She glared at him as the statement processed. "I am _not!_"

"Come on," he sighed, looking her up and down. "You're literally trembling."

Anna looked down at herself and realized that he was right. She let out her breath, giving him an apologetic look.

"It's just…I think you were right about Victoria. She probably _will_ come out searching for me, knowing her." Anna groaned. "But see, the thing is…if she's going to, why hasn't she done it yet? I mean, it's been two weeks…I'm sure she's had enough time to send a search party out. But we haven't seen hide or hair of anyone."

Hiccup raised his eyebrows. "Are you complaining?"

"No." She shook her head. "It's just…she's biding her time and I can't figure out why. I'm kind of worried."

"Well, there's not much use stressing." Hiccup shrugged. "If she comes, she comes. Fretting about it isn't going to change that. Besides…" He smirked slightly. "You said we could take her, didn't you?"

Anna's face grew hot with embarrassment. "Oh, uh…yeah, I guess I did say that, didn't I?"

It seemed like a laughable notion now. Typical, she thought, her bravado talking instead of her brain in the heat of the moment.

Thankfully it hadn't definitively been proven wrong yet.

"Well, all the more reason to train!" Forcing a smile, she turned away from him and continued tromping through the messy mix of leaves and melting snow.

She halted abruptly in a clearing, stopping so suddenly that Hiccup crashed into her back with a brief grunt.

"Anna, um…the lake's not for—"

"We're practicing right here," she announced importantly. "No more of this water buffer stuff."

He gazed at her uncertainly. "You know, um…this didn't work out so well last time…"

"Well, that doesn't matter, does it?" she hissed, tone growing suddenly sharp. "If I can't learn to control my powers when there doesn't happen to be a giant lake nearby, then what's the point? I'll never go back to Arendelle!"

For a brief moment he looked hurt, but quickly masked it with a confused expression. "Well, that doesn't mean you have to master it _right now_—"

She turned and gave him a poisonous look. "Do you want me to prove Victoria wrong or not?"

He held up his hands in defeat, backing away. "Okay, okay!"

"Good."

Still bristling slightly, Anna ripped off her gloves and dropped them on the ground. What the hell did he expect? That she was just going to magically get better by having a huge expanse of water to save her behind whenever she screwed up?

Huffing, she spread her hands apart and summoned a ball of fire. As it grew bigger and bigger, it spat and sparked at the edges, sending tiny bits of flame flying and vanishing into the winter air. She tried to make the surface more even, smoothing out the licking flames into a flat, rippling orange surface. She had mastered that little trick a couple weeks ago, but today the fireball just did not seem to want to cooperate at all.

"Come on, come on," she growled, scrunching her brow and trying harder. But it seemed the harder she concentrated, the more the disobedient flames reached up and grabbed at the air of completely their own accord.

"Oh, screw it!" She broke her hands apart and caused the fiery ball to sizzle out, dropping a shower of ash onto the ground.

She rubbed her index finger and thumb rapidly together, pulling them apart to form a tiny stream of fire. She ran her finger through the air with practiced precision, trying to form the burning outline of a wolf.

It came out ragged and bent, spasming around the air like the messy creation of a 5-year-old with no inkling of how animal anatomy worked. Unlike her attempted drawing, real wolves did not, in fact, have huge gaps all throughout their back or legs like ungraceful spaghetti noodles or a head so covered in uneven ripples it might as well have been made of water.

She looked down at her hand to see it was still quivering slightly, although from what she couldn't tell. She groaned, waving her hand and snuffing the badly-drawn wolf out of existence.

_Why isn't anything working today?_

"Wow. Real smooth," Anna grunted, half to herself.

_Okay. This time._

Anna cupped her hands and summoned up a thick column of fire. As she tried to shape it, Hiccup gave her an uncertain look, but said nothing.

She tried to bend it over, making the two ends connect into a single hollow, burning disc. It was something she had been practicing, making her fire into a tossable, controlled weapon resembling a frisbee. It certainly seemed less wild and unpredictable than a fireball.

It sometimes teetered over, but stubbornly snapped back up into its original column, spewing tiny flames out into the frosty air. Letting out another irritated groan, Anna waved it out.

"Son of a—" Anna gave her hand an impatient flick, trying to conjure a small flame.

She was completely unprepared for an enormous fireball to come careening out at full force. Letting out a small gasp, she stumbled backwards and clutched onto a nearby tree to steady herself.

Before she could process what was happening, the fireball crashed into a nearby pile of leaves. With a roar, it came to life, crawling over twigs and grass and tree trunks and anything else it could get its greedy fingers on.

The entire clearing was suddenly blazing orange. Smoke began to slowly rise, curling up in inky black tendrils stark against patches of white snow.

Anna watched in horror, fingers beginning to claw at the tree trunk as she stood frozen to the spot. _Not again…_

With a jolt, she remembered how she had been feeling earlier. Angry, anxious, tense…

Was she going to start a fire whenever she got stressed? Whenever she got scared?

It was true that the majority of her successful practicing was done when she was in a relatively calm mood…

Hiccup came to his senses before she did, grabbing up what little nearby snow he could find and chucking it at the roaring flames. It did little to stop the growing blaze.

Anna's ears rang with a screaming, and she realized after a long moment that it was her own.

Her feet seeming to move without her accord, she suddenly stepped forward, swinging her hands out in front of her and spreading her palms wide. As the blistering heat of the fire drew closer, she closed her eyes, sucking in her breath sharply.

She felt a sudden warmth ripple and swirl in the middle of her palms. When she opened her eyes, she let out a cry of shock.

The fire was rushing back into her hands in glowing, spiraling streams, filling her entire body with uncomfortable heat. In a matter of seconds every last flame was sucked off every leaf and every tree and back into her, leaving the forest clearing empty.

Hiccup stared at her in shock. "How…how did you do that?"

The unpleasant heat faded inside of her, leaving her with nothing but an uneasy chill running down her body. She looked down at her hands with an equally stunned expression.

"I have no idea," she whimpered.

"You…you just…you made it…" He gestured wildly around the clearing. "How did you _do_ that?"

Anna shrugged, starting to shake.

"Hey, this…" Hiccup started to laugh. "This is great! This means if you ever start a fire, you can just suck it back up, right?"

Anna shook her head. "N—no, Hiccup, I have no idea how I even _did_ that! And look at all this."

She gestured around the clearing, leaves and grass blackened into ash and trees seared with burnmarks. The fire had even jumped to a few adjacent trees outside the clearing from the looks of it.

_It might well have spread across the whole forest if it hadn't been for…whatever the hell that just was._

She shook her head. "Look at all this," she whispered. "All because I was a little upset. I'm never going back to Arendelle!"

She buried her face in her hands. She felt her eyes grow hot, and wasn't sure if it was from tears or from the touch of her ungloved fingers to her eyelids.

"Anna, hey." Hiccup's voice softened. "People make mistakes. This is your first time practicing away from the lake…I didn't expect you to be perfect."

She peeked at him through her fingers, and saw him reaching a hand toward her own. Instinctively, she snatched it away and ducked out of his reach, stealing a glance at her gloves on the ground. (The fire hadn't spread to where they were, thankfully.)

"What's wrong?" he said. "I just—"

He reached for her hand again, and she pulled it away again, more sharply this time.

"Don't touch me!" she yelped. "I'll burn you!"

He had never, she realized, touched her hands when the gloves were off. Even the innocent accidental finger brushes and lacing his fingers around her wrists when he was showing her how to do something always happened when the gloves were firmly on.

And she wanted to keep it that way. She was scared out of her wits of what would happen if she didn't.

"No, you won't," he said evenly. "I trust you."

She gave him an incredulous look, spluttering. "Well…but…I mean…you _shouldn't!_ Did you _not_ see what just happened here?!" She looked away, sighing bitterly.

"I just burn everything I touch. And I don't want to hurt you, too."

"You're not going to."

She shook her head, eyes wide. "I don't even know what I can do," she whispered.

"You can take back in your fire!" Hiccup said, waving his hands in exasperation. "That's awesome! Once you get a handle on that, you'll always have a backup plan if you accidentally set stuff on fire."

"But how am I supposed to get a handle on that when I can't even get a handle on my powers I _do_ kinda know how to control?" she whimpered.

"Well, you were kind of tense—"

"I've told you a thousand times!" she snapped. "There's no point to any of this if I can't learn to control it when I'm 'kind of tense.' And I've barely been getting any better. Look what I did…"

Holding back a sob, she rested her face in her hands again. "I don't know what's happening to me. I don't know what I'm turning into. And I can't stop it."

"Well, hey, welcome to my life," Hiccup said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the atmosphere. When it didn't work, he dissolved into awkward silence.

"Anna, you really have gotten _so_ much better," he said finally. "It could take a long time, I'm not going to lie, but you _will_ go back to Arendelle. And this sucking-in-fire thing doesn't have to be a hurdle if you can learn how to use it to your advantage."

She let out a frustrated sigh. "But I don't know how it _works!_ I don't know how _any_ of this works. I don't know how to keep it from…from being a danger to everyone. Just like Victoria says."

"Anna…"

She felt the palm of his hand rest against the back of hers. Letting out a yelp, she turned away from the tree and backed toward the gloves.

"Hiccup, stop it! I'm going to hurt you!"

"Anna, you're not. And if you do…well, then it's my own fault, isn't it? I'll just deal."

He reached out and grabbed her hand before she could pull away again, unexpectedly intertwining his fingers with hers.

"Hiccup!" Anna cried, although she made no move to pull away. "What are you doing?"

He smirked. "See? I'm fine!"

Anna relaxed slightly, letting a smile poke through even though her heart was still racing.

"You're an idiot."

With her free hand, she picked up a glove and wriggled it on. Sighing, she met his gaze.

"Hiccup, seriously. You saw how on-edge I am. I'm going to burn a hole in your hand if you don't let go."

He shook his head. "No, you're not. You want to know why?" He took a step closer, unlacing their fingers to press their hands together at the palms. "Because I trust you. If you were really such a raging disaster, _far_ more of this forest would have been combusted by now. You _can_ control your powers. Look at you…you are right now!"

She glanced down at her hand, pressed against his with their fingertips touching. Breathing hard, she wondered if she was sweating all over his hand.

Maybe you sweat out of your hand when you were incredibly nervous. Did you? Anna didn't really know.

"Doesn't my skin burn you?" she whispered.

"Nope." Hiccup grinned. "Just feels a little warmer than usual."

"See, if you can control it enough not to burn me, you can control all of it."

Her heart starting to race, Anna suddenly jerked her hand away, picking up the remaining glove and putting it on.

"I'm not sure that's a risk I'm willing to take."

"Hey." Hiccup put a hand on her shoulder. "You're going to be fine, okay?"

She let out a long sigh. "Okay."

"Why don't we go back to the cave and have some lunch?" he suggested.

Anna looked at him in confusion. "But…we just started…"

He shrugged. "Well, sure, but it kinda looks like you could use a break."

Right on cue, Anna's stomach made a gargantuan gurgling sound.

"See?" Hiccup gestured to her belly. "Even the dying whale in there agrees!"

Another smile forced its way through, and Anna shook her head. "Okay, okay, fine. Heh, I ah…I guess I'm not really gonna say no to food."

She bounced with a renewed spring in her step all the way back to the cave, rejuvenated by the thought of fresh roasted meat and Jarlsberg cheese and baguettes.

When they got back to the cave, the remains of her latest trip to the kingdom were stowed in the picnic basket, pressed up inconspicuously against the wall. The weather being what it was, the cold air of the cave was plenty enough of an icebox to keep the cheese from going bad. Anna had been stealing into town regularly to buy them non-meat food, wearing a different disguise and using a different backstory every time. Luckily, no one seemed to have caught on yet.

Unfortunately, there hadn't been enough bread and cheese left over for them to make a full meal, so Hiccup had had to catch a deer that morning.

Hiccup pulled the body out from under the pelt he had draped over it, and as he set to work putting meat on sticks to cook, Anna started a fire. She looked over to notice that he seemed to be working oddly fast, scooping up the venison and shoving it onto the sticks with an uncharacteristic impatience.

_He must be hungrier than I thought._ Still, it seemed odd that Hiccup of all people would be eager to dig into a bunch of meat.

As they held their sticks over the fire, she saw him continuing to eye it hungrily, turning the stick with his fingers in the same rushed, sloppy manner he had put the meat on.

Anna fidgeted, working the fingers of her free hand against the cave floor.

"Is everything…"

"Hm?" He looked up from turning his venison, giving her a questioning look.

"Never mind." She shook her head, going back to turning her stick.

He finished in just a few minutes and scooted away. Although Anna couldn't see it, she was fairly certain that the insides of the light brown chunks were still red.

Strange. Hiccup usually liked his meat well-done…sometimes almost burned, in fact. When asked about it, he had said he liked to get any "wild, feral" taste out of it that he could, keep it like something the villagers back at Berk would eat.

And the precise way he did everything didn't leave much room for careless undercooking errors, she would think.

Hiccup was already done making a sandwich and spreading some mayonnaise on it by the time Anna finished roasting her meat. She was starting to crawl over to the basket when a sharp noise made her turn.

Hiccup was devouring his sandwich like he had never seen food before, practically shoving it down his throat as though he was trying to speedily get rid of some piece of unsavory evidence. His fingers seemed to claw at it as he ate, nails scraping through the bread like a wolf tearing apart their prey.

But that wasn't the most disturbing part.

As he was chewing, he was making odd, guttural noises, sounds that no human being should have been able to make. Noises that sounded like they should come from a rabid feral dog, or a bear threatening something trespassing on their territory.

"Hiccup…"

Anna uttered his name almost involuntarily, her voice soft and dismayed.

"What?"

He looked up, green eyes big and cheeks full of food in the same manner as a spring chipmunk. He looked so innocent and childlike that it was nearly impossible to believe that the sounds she had just been hearing had been coming from the same person.

"You were _growling_…" she breathed.

His face fell, eyes widening with horror. "I…was?"

"Yes."

His entire face flushed. "I, uh…I didn't mean to. I mean, I _was_ pretty hungry, but I didn't know I was doing all that. I just thought I was eating…"

He eyed his sandwich guiltily, and Anna immediately felt bad.

"No, no, it's not a big deal! Keep eating. I don't really care. I probably growl when I'm eating for the first time all day, too," she added, forcing a laugh.

He nodded, but moved the sandwich toward his mouth more slowly, taking cautious bites and chewing for too long. She could see from his pained expression how much he just wanted to continue to scarf it down, but he held back.

Turning her attention away from him, Anna set to work preparing her own sandwich. And she tore open the bread and laid down the cheese and the thick chunks of roasted meat, she felt her body give in involuntary shudder.

* * *

Anna had always marveled at how fast Hiccup could go to sleep.

She herself had always had quite a bit of trouble drifting off, sometimes tossing and turning for hours on end and playing a multitude of fantastical, far-fetched scenarios over in her head before sleep finally came. Hiccup, meanwhile, could curl up in his bundle of pelts and blankets and be quietly snoring in a matter of minutes.

It was never loud, obnoxious snoring like the kind that once drifted out of her father's room at night. It was soft and peaceful, and often just rhythmic enough to help Anna herself drift off.

She found herself staring at the cave ceiling, trying to focus on nothing but Hiccup's gentle snores but finding her thoughts racing and darting restlessly around like fish trapped in a bowl. Every time her head seemed to quiet, something new would surface for her to worry about.

_What are you going to do when Victoria comes for you? How are you going to tell Elsa about what you're capable of when she gets back? What if Elsa isn't okay with Hiccup living in the castle? What if she doesn't even want him in the _kingdom?_ Will he have to be alone again? What if people still want to kill you after Elsa comes back and tries to protect you? What if people want to kill _Hiccup_ and you can't protect him?_

She was jerked from her frenzied thoughts when the steady cycle of snores suddenly broke, going quiet for a few seconds before what sounded like a soft whimper echoed through the cave.

Anna turned onto her side, peering at Hiccup's sleeping form across the last of the dying fire. He seemed to be twitching in his sleep, his face shifting in and out of a grimace and his mouth making a series of noises that sounded like a mixture of snarls and growls.

Anna frowned. _What is he dreaming about?_

He turned over a few times, the growls and snarls morphing into pained-sounding whimpers and groans. The twitching intensified until his entire body seemed to be trembling.

Feeling a prick of concern, Anna crawled out of her bedding and started making her way around the firepit and over to the side of the sleeping boy. The last burning embers of the fire reflected off of his skin, revealing that it had grown damp with sweat. He was still trembling, lips parting to reveal gritted teeth as he went back and forth between vicious-sounding snarls and pained whines. Anna noticed his fingers were working against the cave floor, fingernails clawing at it so fiercely that she was surprised that they didn't leave gougemarks.

It set her teeth on edge.

He turned over a few more times, fingernails still scratching mercilessly at the cave floor. The trembling dissolved into full-out shaking, and the odd mixture of growls and moans dissolved into what sounded like a soft wailing.

_Okay, no question about it now. Whatever he's dreaming about can't be good._

"Hiccup!" She leaned forward, shaking his shoulders as roughly as she could. "Hiccup, _wake up!_"

He came to in a few seconds, green eyes snapping open and locking on her with such a startling intensity that Anna barely recognized them as his at first. He bared his teeth in another snarl and lifted an arm off the ground, hand rushing toward her as if trying to claw at her.

She caught his wrist firmly in her hand, stopping him. "Hiccup, it's me!" she hissed. Her tone softened. "You were having a nightmare."

He blinked a few times, a look of confusion spreading over his face as he looked around the dark cave and then back to her. "You…you're not…"

He started to sit up, and with his other hand he tentatively reached up and touched her cheek, seeming to check to make sure it was really there. His fingers spread out and rested against her skin, as if trying to keep her from dissolving away under him. Anna felt her cheeks grow hot at the gesture, but forced herself to remain calm for his sake.

"It was just a bad dream," she said gently. "You're safe now."

"You're okay," he choked out finally, eyeing her with such a desperate, haunted look in his eyes that she shifted uncomfortably.

It was her turn to look at him in confusion. "Well, yeah…why wouldn't I be?"

"I thought you were…well, never mind. You're okay."

She carefully let go of his wrist, moving her hand over to rest on the one on her cheek. He sat all the way up and unexpectedly wrapped her in a tight embrace, pulling her so close to him that she nearly felt like her ribs were being crushed.

She would have made a joke about him possibly considering giving her lungs some room to work, but she could tell that whatever nightmare he had had had shaken him up pretty badly.

"It was bad, huh?" she ventured. In response he hugged her tighter. She could still feel his entire body shaking, and it made her stomach twist with worry.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He said nothing, only burying his face deeper in her shoulder.

"You…uh…you don't have to if you don't want to," she added awkwardly after a brief pause. "But you can say what it was if you want. I'll listen. And uh…I'm not going anywhere either. I'll stay right here and give you whatever you need. So like…if you want to hug it out, or if you want to vent or something…well, either is fine. I'm here for you, okay?"

He let out a shaky breath, and Anna let him pull her even closer.

"You can tell me anything," she went on. "Unless you don't want to. Then you don't have to, obviously. And I understand."

It was only a minute or two, but it felt like an eternity before he finally spoke again.

"I was…really hungry. Felt like I was starving to death. You were right there talking to me. And I started turning into a dragon, and I didn't really want to, but I couldn't stop it. I was screaming the whole time. I've…" His voice cracked a little. "I've had involuntary transformations before, but this one…this one was different. Everything was searing and stretching and it was like everything inside of me was twisting into some…completely feral…_thing._"

He took a shuddering breath before he went on. "And then it was like…everything was red and all I could smell was meat. I started following something, and I didn't recognize that it was you, and then…"

A short, tense silence. "And then?" Anna prompted.

"I…killed you."

She pulled away, eyes widening in alarm. Hiccup leaned back and sat on his knees, eyeing her warily. He seemed to be worried he had let too much slip. Worried that she was going to shove him away, scramble to her feet, and run for her life, leaving him abandoned and alone to hate himself in that dark, miserable cave.

Instead, she took a deep breath, meeting his eyes evenly. She had said she wasn't going anywhere, and she had no intention of going back on her word.

"Everything was red, and all I could smell was meat, and _I killed you._" His entire face wrinkled in disgust. "And I didn't even realize I was until…"

He fixed his gaze on the floor, not meeting her eyes. "And I changed back and realized and…there was _so much blood_, Anna…"

Hiccup looked like he was ready to throw up. His eyes flicked up to meet hers again, giving her a gaze that wasn't anything short of terrified.

In that moment, any fear of him that might have been starting to gnaw at the inside of her chest completely shattered. It was clear he was in much more pain over this than she was if the thought of him doing anything to her had shaken him this much. He was an absolute mess.

Anna reached out and rested her hand on his arm.

"Hiccup, listen. It was just a bad dream. You're not like that, okay? I know you would never do anything to hurt me."

"But it wasn't _me_, Anna." He looked up at her with a haunted expression. "It was something else that just…took over me. And I couldn't fight it. I just turned into this…this _monster._"

His voice shook as he said it, and Anna squeezed his arm, gazing at him sympathetically.

"Well, that's never going to happen, because you've learned how to control your transformations," she said firmly. "That's not you, and it never will be. You're not a monster. You're just an unlucky kid who had a little bit of trouble finding his way in the world. But look how far you've come already!" She smiled proudly, patting his chest a couple times. "You're able to make wings come out of your back at will—which is pretty damn cool, you know—and you've figured out enough about controlling your own powers to help teach _me_ how to handle mine!"

"That's just _it_, though!" He looked at her pleadingly. "I _haven't_ learned how to control my transformations. Not all the way. I've just gotten a bit better. I can still lose control…"

"Yes, you've _gotten better_," Anna reminded him. "You're not just going to suddenly turn around and get worse. You can only improve from here, right? And it already seems like you have a pretty good handle on everything."

He sighed. "It's not that easy. I've tried to get a handle on what I can, but…I don't even know what it is I _am_, really. Or what I'm turning into."

His voice cracked at the end, and he hunched over as if he had been physically hit.

She touched her hand to his shoulder. "You're not turning into anything," she said softly. "You're just _you_. Nothing you've _ever_ done has made me feel unsafe. Whatever you saw was your imagination trying to scare you, and…none of that was _real_. And it won't be."

"No, no, I don't _know!_" he said frantically. He sat up, reaching out and grabbing her shoulders so tightly that it hurt. "I don't know what could happen to me. And if I ever hurt you Anna, I…"

He trailed off, and Anna noticed that his green eyes were pooling with tears.

"I couldn't live with myself!" he choked out. "Thinking of something happening to you because of me, I…I can't…"

He held her shoulders even tighter, if that was possible.

"You're the only real friend I've ever had, Anna."

_Am I really?_ The terrified, desperate look in his eyes confirmed it, and it broke her heart.

Anna pulled him in close again, and his body started to heave with soft sobs. She was reminded of the evening in the cave what seemed like an eternity ago, when he had told her about the villagers of Berk driving him out. But this time around, all the fear and anguish dulled by time was more real…more immediate.

"Hey, shhhh," she whispered. "Shhhh, everything's going to be all right."

"You've done so much for me, you've tried so hard to help me, and if you ever got hurt because of me, I'd just…" He choked on the words, unable to even finish.

Her hands started to work through his hair. "That's not going to happen, because you're not going to get like that," she told him firmly. "And if something starts to happen—if you start losing control of your powers and you're really scared you'll do something—then we'll figure something out. I'll find a way to help you."

She wanted to do anything—hug him, hold him, kiss him, hold his face in her hands—anything to convince him he wasn't some sort of monster. Anything to convince him that he was just as cared about as anyone else.

_But how am I supposed to save him from himself?_

She settled for just holding him for a while, running her fingers through his hair and trying to comfort him. The quiet sobs persisted, but eventually started to slow down and become more infrequent.

"No no no no, it's okay. You're okay. You're okay," Anna murmured, over and over again.

After a while, Hiccup pulled away and she grabbed his shoulders again, forcing him to meet her eyes.

"You're going to be fine," she said.

At last, Hiccup seemed to have calmed down. He took a deep breath.

"Thanks for waking me up," he said. "Sorry about all that."

Anna shook her head. "Don't apologize! You didn't do anything wrong."

"Well, I didn't mean to freak you out. I _am_ scared, but you know I'm going to try really hard to never let anything like that happen."

"Of course I know. Anyway, I was the one who told you you could tell me about it. Kind of my own fault if I'm freaked out." She forced an uneasy laugh.

Anna glanced briefly at his bedding, wondering if another human sleeping next to him and a little bit of physical affection would help him sleep any better. She decided against asking, worrying that she would be crossing some sort of line.

"Are you…are you going to be okay?" she settled for instead.

He shrugged. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be fine. Thank you, though."

His eyes flicked out to the forest, where the starry sky was still spread out above the dark outlines of the trees.

"I guess I should try to go back to sleep," he said.

"Right, right, of course." Anna started to scoot away. "Hey, um…" She bit her lip nervously. "If you have any more bad dreams, come wake me up, okay? I want to help."

"Yeah, will do!" He started to ease back into his pile of pelts and blankets, giving her an encouraging grin and a thumbs up as he did so. "Er…thanks again."

"It's no problem," she said, giving his arm one last comforting touch before making her way back to her own blankets. Even as she slid into her bed, she found herself casting concerned glances over at him, staying alert for any more sounds of distress echoing through the cave.

* * *

**Hello again! Y'all ready to be SAD?**

**Hey, I DID warn you. Shit's gonna get REAL dark, my friends. Just in time for Halloween! :D**

**Now, now, I know what you're thinking. "Why can Anna reabsorb her fire? That's such a weird, random addition to the way her powers work?" And the honest truth is that like…I needed to nerf her a bit? Like having a power where you can shoot out fire with no way to actually…put it out is gonna lead down to everything around you getting burned down pretty fast, so I decided to give Anna a way to at least lessen the damage it causes a little bit. I mean, the thing with Elsa's power is that snow and ice DO eventually melt without totally destroying whatever they land on, and in any case Elsa ended up being able to condense the entirety of the "winter" and disperse it at the end of Frozen in a way you really couldn't with fire—at least not without raining a bunch of toxic ash and cinders down on everything after the whole kingdom has already gone up in flames anyway. So I know there isn't quite a "flame re-absorption" equivalent in Elsa's powerset, but this was mainly just by feeble attempt to equalize their powersets a little more and come up with another way for Anna to actually have hope of controlling what would otherwise be like…a ridiculously over-the-top destructive power lol**

**Don't mind me, just casually further feeding my headcanon that Hiccup is one of the only damn people who would successfully be able to calm Anna down when she's freaking out about something XD Also, smooth bastard…using reassuring your crush about her powers as an excuse to hold her hand? We allllll see what you're up to, Hiccup!**

**I've always headcanoned that Anna struggles with insomnia (like me!) and that's why she finds it so hard to get up in the morning. Mine is usually anxiety-based (i.e. can't relax enough to drift off to sleep because you start worrying and stressing about everything possible), so I decided to make that the case with Anna as well. To be fair, she does in fact have quite a bit to reasonably worry about XD**

**Ah, no fanfic would be complete without the "Half of OTP comforting the other half after a really bad nightmare" bit! Sorry, I had to. Hey, when I write angst, I go all the way—go big or go home! Also some spooky foreshadowing that we…definitely haven't seen the worst of Hiccup's—er, condition yet. Let's just say he wasn't fucking around when he told Anna it was dangerous to be around him.**

**Fun fact: This scene was partially inspired by this one scene in The Shining where Jack Torrance (before he goes crazy obviously) has a nightmare about killing his wife and kid and he breaks down crying telling his wife about it and she just holds him and comforts him and man, it was lowkey super sweet and poignant. Makes you almost wish Jack isn't gonna go totally batshit and murder-happy later on cuz the dude clearly did seem to care about his family somewhat before he went completely bonkers and such.**

**I feel bad for how many times I'm going to make both Hiccup and Anna cry throughout this fanfic XD IT'S TRAUMA TIME, HOORAY!**

**Also yes they are both very much into each other at this point and yes they are absolutely in denial about it because "oh, they'd never like me back, right?" and yes this is both hilarious and frustrating and yes this will go on for a little while longer yet.**

**I've had some reviews asking when Elsa's going to come back and what she's going to think about all this. Don't worry, all in due time! I'm definitely planning on bringing Elsa back into the story eventually, but not for a few more chapters. Like I mentioned earlier, she'll be a major player later on, but for now I wanted the focus to be mainly on Hiccup and Anna and their relationship. Also Victoria, and what schemes she's concocting in Elsa's absence!**

**Also this is yet another plea to go follow my new tumblr, Hiccanna-Tidbits, for more Hiccanna content! I make mostly moodboards but I'm going to be posting some headcanons and OTP questionaires for Hiccanna as well. I'm even going to be making a moodboard to go with this story to celebrate its 1-year anniversary next month! (Wow…has it been that long already? Wack) **

**Also ALSO if you're regularly following this, please please please leave me reviews to tell me what you think! Please, I'm begging you guys! D: Like I haven't gotten many for the last couple chapters, and I just want to make sure people are still invested. I have to put a lot of time and work into updating once a month, and I want to make sure that people actually DO still care. If people are more "meh" on it now, I might update a little less frequently so I have more time to work on my other Hiccanna projects. Let me know!**

**See y'all next month!**


End file.
